


Hermione Granger's Mission

by Jess1310



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action & Romance, Battle of Hogwarts, F/M, Horcruxes, Motorcycles, Sexual Tension, Sirimione - Freeform, Slow Burn, The Marauders - Freeform, True Love, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:13:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26921926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jess1310/pseuds/Jess1310
Summary: Everything should have ended with the fall of Voldemort. But that's not what happened.And suddenly she was changing the balance between victory and defeat of light in that battle. And the war started to depend on a time traveler, on the master of potions, on one repentant death eater and two maureders. After all, what else did she have to lose?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Hermione Granger, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. The start

**Author's Note:**

> I am a Brazilian writer and I am risking writing this story in a foreign language (English), so I would like to count on your patience and understanding, my dear reader, for eventual mistakes or words that are very incoherent. But I need to post this and it needed to be here because this is where I met this couple and formulated my exciting story (without any modesty).  
> I hope they enjoy it as much as I did writing it.
> 
> Always good to remember that this work does not belong to me, but the writer J.K Rowling. xoxo.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione recalls the events that led her to make the most important decision of her life.

It was hoped that it would all come to an end with the fall of the you-know-who. But that's not what happened.  
Not long after the illusory peace in the witch world, there was one of the worst nights of Hermione Granger's life. Entitled by the Daily Prophet as "The Attack on the Weasleys' Hole," Hermione lost his friends that day (and this time forever, he commented on that damn newspaper when referring to Harry).  
Gina. Ron. Harry. Molly. Fleur. George.  
All killed by diners who had not yet been captured by the ministry. Just that day, when she and Ron were celebrating their engagement. Surprisingly, it was Draco Malfoy who saved her life, the same blond who pestered her during all her years at Hogwarts and who had also tried to kill her during the final battle. Not that she felt grateful to him for that, after all, now she was alone.  
Hermione was in the bathroom when the invasion happened, she remembers the image of her hands under the faucet when she heard Gina's shrieking and several other "Please don't" that came back afterward, she remembers the explosions, the maniacal laughter, the curses and the final explosion that took place in the kitchen. She remembers taking the wand away from the times and assuming the battle position, as she was always prepared to do. She just wasn't prepared to find her fiancé's body in the hallway next to the bathroom, as if he had gone there to protect her. From then on she didn't remember much, only the most disturbing moments of that day.  
Ronald's green eyes were fixed on the ceiling, with no focus, no brightness, no life. He was alive and suddenly not. His cheeks losing their color and standing out the iron freckles, his hand holding firmly the wand, the engagement ring still on his finger, just like hers was.  
Hermione doesn't know how she survived, because when she saw the groom's body in the corridor she simply hung up and felt her throat hurt. Draco Malfoy said she shouted Ron's name with the most devastating scream he had ever heard before. She, however, remembers only kneeling beside his lifeless body and putting his head under her legs, burying his face in her shirt and crying at length. Hermione doesn't remember the battle which took place in the room, only the faces of Harry and Gina contorted in anguish and pain, they weren't far from Ron's body, the hands of the two united.  
In the end, Draco asked her if she was okay, and she remembers not having words to describe how stupid that question was. He helped her up, fighting a little against her to force her to release Ron's inert body. The last sight of Toca she possessed was Arthur's with Molly's body in his arms as he looked at his children, hope died in him that day, and Hermione knew that his pain was so much greater and deeper than his own. When they took her to St. Mungus, diagnosed her as a patient in shock, Hermione didn't talk, didn't eat, and was constantly afraid to sleep, needing potions strong enough to make her do it. And yet, every time he closed his eyes, Ron's inert face appeared to haunt her, he always falling, falling, falling, and suddenly he was no longer there.  
"Hermione." Luna's sweet voice brought her back to reality, for the hundredth time only that day the chestnut had traveled to a year ago. When everything happened, the Ministry decided that Granger had a huge target on her back and it was better to hide, that's when she sent an owl to Luna, willing to recluse in the middle of nowhere with the girl who seemed to be the only one left at the moment.  
After a while Hermione and Luna got used to each other, the blonde knew how to respect Hermione's space and pain, after all, Luna didn't care much for the brunette, always behind her fantastic creatures that after all this time, Hermione still found colossal nonsense. Meanwhile, one and a half times the blonde stopped at the threshold of the door and analyzed Hermione with her beautiful blue eyes, then saying that Grifinoria's head was full of zonzobules and that's why she saw herself so confused and restless during the days and nights, then she gave Hermione strange teas, and incredibly for a few seconds, the chestnut felt warm and safe as if she could finally have peace.  
The dreamless potion was something particularly necessary for Hermione and she learned to never stop doing it because reliving the war and the attack left her troubled for long weeks.  
"You should come with me today."  
"Do you think it's a good idea for me to get into the weed with you" - Hermione looked at her bowing her eyebrow a little.  
"It's not one weed, it's one lake. The creature we are looking for is very fond of water and particularly of this lake in question. Scamander will be there." The dreamy eyes acquired a glow when talking about Luna's probable future boyfriend, they had been researching together for a long time, and Hermione couldn't imagine someone who would fit Luna more than him.  
" No thanks, I have some readings to catch up on. Apart from the fact that the Ministry finds my latest research done at home gratifying, so I have work to do." She pointed with her head to the purple door that led to the basement of Lovegood's house.  
" Okay, I'll come back late, or maybe tomorrow... Rulian really likes to show up between 3 and 6 in the morning."  
" You gave a name to a creature that doesn't even know what it is?" Hermione faced it with a laugh on her lips.  
"It was better than calling him a creature, it sounds less insensitive." Hermione shook her head laughing and stood up, taking the cup with the cold tea to the sink. Then he watched Luna levitate a kind of cart that carried all his books, manuscripts, and some pots of small animals, which Hermione expected to die." Wait, Loone, I don't think I ever thanked you."  
The blonde stopped at the door wearing her coat, turned to Hermione, and pointed the wand so that her things would leave before she did.  
"You didn't have to, that's not a Hermione favor, we're friends. We became friends, you supported me and I supported you, remember?" Hermione smiled sadly at her friend and in a rush rushed to hug her, feeling her tears piling up, blurring her vision, and forcing her to close her eyes so as not to start a cry that would take time to stop.  
Not that they had told her that, but Hermione knew that Luna Lovegood was the only person who offered to welcome her after all that had happened, and despite the remaining Weasleys, Hermione knew that she could never bear to return to the Ring, watching the clock on the kitchen wall indicating that Ron, Gina, Fred, George, and Molly were in mortal danger.  
And when Luna invited her, she initially needed someone to catalog some things with her, and surprisingly Hermione fit the function very well, in the period she was looking for something that could occupy her mind for a long period of the day, leaving less time to relive the scenes of her worst nightmares. And then, after three months away from the Ministry, she decided to return. Not that anyone knew until then, but Hermione transferred from the department of law and control of magical creatures to the department of experiments and research with time travel.  
"I want to say that you were very important to me Luna Lovegood and I wanted to apologize for all the moments in which I found you a complete freak." She hugged her friend hard and took a deep breath. "I will miss you."  
"I'll be back in the morning, I said." She came out of the tight hug and held Hermione's hands "Is everything okay? If you want I can stay home today."  
" I'm just a little emotional. I'm sorry." Hermione dried up the accumulation of drops from the corner of her eyes and smiled sadly "I just wanted you to know these things, now go before your witch appears here to escort you."  
Hermione was a bit overwhelmed by Scarmander's mention, Luna nodded and left the house when she reached the bottom of the stairs.  
Hermione sighed longingly and closed the door locking her, as well as locked all the doors and windows, casting protective spells that could only be overturned by herself or Lovegood. She put on her shoes and put on her coat, capturing the extendable pocket that rested next to her bookcase, inside her, there was a whole life: books, clothes, money, diplomas, fake documents, and pictures of a life she, unfortunately, knew she could never return.  
That was not an easy decision, but anything would be better than the present. Anything would be better than being alone and tormented by ghosts.  
It took a while, of course, Hermione had to read more than a hundred books on the subject, talk to experts on the subject, travel to Egypt itself, check accounts of people who claimed to be time travelers (even if most of them were just charlatans) until finally, she managed to formulate a plan.  
She managed to time-turner extensible of course, which would not take her just a few hours ago, but decades. And after many, many tests in the Ministry's laboratory of experiments, she stole it, and she counted on the fact that they would only discover it a few hours from then. And then, Hermione just had to prepare herself: she gathered clothes, gathered information about people and the period, rearranged the chronology, lacking to know exactly what would happen and on what date it would happen.  
Hermione Granger's mission was to prevent betrayals from taking place, save lives, and change the outcome of Lord Voldemort's first ascension. She had to prevent the death of Lilian and James Potter, because this would avoid the suffering of Harry, the imprisonment and death of Sirius Black, the miserable life of Remus Lupin, the imminent madness of the Longbottoms, the death of the Weasleys, that of Dobby, Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and so many others.  
She last looked at the house, staring at her and Luna's picture on a picture frame in the bookcase. She would miss her, in a way she never thought of. And then she went downstairs to her experimental table, with a wave of a wand everything disappeared as if she had never been there. And then she took out the turning-point stored in a small black box, it was tiny and imperceptible, she dictated the words of the old spell slowly making the wand movements with care and coordination, and then one drop of the mistletoe potion and all she had to do was spin it.  
There were three possibilities: she would reach the date, she would miss the date by a few more or fewer years, or of course she would die.  
"Nineteen times should suffice." And then she spun and turned, her hands sweating lightly, anxious about what was to come "seventeen, eighteen... Nineteen."  
At first, nothing happened and Hermione wondered if she had done something wrong. But then the world turned and turned and turned and turned, the house of young Lovegood going back in time in quick images until there was nothing left but a forest. And suddenly Hermione was in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in rural London, a forgotten place, just as it would be years ahead. She lifted her wand and conjured up what she wanted, it took a while, but suddenly a newspaper flew straight into her open hand.  
" The air is less polluted in the eighties." she saw it smiling wide. She did not die, she did not miss the year, she hit the spot. Remembering the consequence reported by some travelers, Hermione searched her little bag until she found the mirror "Right, as young as she was two minutes ago. Or rather, 21 years ahead."


	2. The first step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione goes to Hogsmead to find an old friend.

She apparates.  
The Hogsmead of the 80s was a little different, she looked younger. Hermione went directly towards Madam Rosmerta, she knew what she would find there. The pub seemed almost empty, since by Hermione's accounts that wasn't the weekend to visit the village. Behind the counter, a woman much younger and more beautiful than Hermione remembered was talking to her old friend, about 16 years younger than the last time Hermione saw him.  
"Albus Dumbledore." She said her name in a low tone, a little far from them. Dumbledore turned calmly, his eyes shining with curiosity behind his half-moon glasses. Hermione had the impression that regardless of time, or alternative reality, that man would always be one step ahead. An excellent manipulator.  
"I am, and you are...?"  
"Hermione. Hermione Jean Granger." She approached him a few steps before declaring in a low voice "It's funny how far someone can go to find what he's looking for, don't you think?"  
That was the code she combined with the director's painting. It was funny to Hermione that her mission was based on the information given by a damn painting of Hogwarts' former director, the one that now hung next to director Dippet in Minerva McGonagall's current office. She didn't know why, but as the great manipulator that Dumbledore was, she wouldn't be surprised that the man kept letters up to his sleeve even when it was just an office painting.  
"It is a pleasure to meet you." He smiled, but the smile didn't come to his eyes. And he started to show interest and distrust to every breath of her "Rosmerta, he would like a room."  
"Of course, Dumbledore." The woman threw a suspicious look at him, although she had led them both towards a room in the back. As they entered, the old man silenced the room and faced her with an intimidating look.  
"I hope this isn't a trick."  
"Only two people would know those exact words, you and what you call a spy." She bowed an eyebrow to him "To save our time, since I don't have much, I'm a time traveler, don't ask me how just why: I want to kill Tom Riddle."  
"And why should I believe that?"  
"Here" she reached out her hand to him and handed him a small bottle with snow in it "These are my memories, not all of them of course, but enough for you to know where I came from and why I came. I don't expect you to see them now since I could kill you for a long time while you dive in them, but I will be in the Diagonal Alley, your owl will surely find me." After no word from the director, Hermione went on "I want to get in touch with the order as soon as possible, as I said, we don't have much time Albus, lives are at stake."  
It wasn't meant to sound like a threat, but if it sounded Hermione didn't matter. She opened the door and received only an even more curious look from Dumbledore before finally going. Of all things, he probably wouldn't expect her to appear in his life.  
Hermione passed by Rosmerta nodding briefly and as she left the pub apparatus to her new apartment. The street was slightly busy since it was lunchtime, and Hermione went towards the apartments that made sure they were vacant in the period she traveled.  
She got one, it was big enough for her, even too big. There was a bed, a decent bathroom, a kitchen-room with enough utensils, and most importantly, a huge window that gave a privileged view of Borgin and Burkes, the shady artifacts store. It was preferable something in the lock, but Hermione knew that people involved with the dark lord usually didn't get their own hands dirty in places like that.  
The brunette expected Dumbledore to be quick, and if he wasn't, Hermione would have to walk alone. And that included killing the traitor among the maureders.  
At the end of that week, Hermione felt like a movie cop making bell to catch bad guys. In the morning she would have coffee and go back to her room, read while nobody showed up at Borgin and Burkes, and paid full attention to each one who entered. The first big-name involved was Lucius Malfoy, younger, prettier, and with silver hair and short this time. He was accompanied by his wife Narcisa Malfoy. They didn't stay long and the people who came in next despite the shadows didn't look like someone of interest to Hermione. Then after Friday's dinner, she lay down wondering what her next step would be when she heard a noise coming from the window, saw the black owl pecking at the glass, and then moved to get the letter in her beak. Hermione tried to offer her birdseed and water, briefly stroking her feathers before opening the letter.  
"In white." She said with a smile, then hit the wand twice whispering the words that reminded him that Albus of the painting had told him. 

"Dear Miss Granger, I am impressed and curious about the information you have and how they will weigh on the outcome of this equation. I hope you tomorrow just after dinner, you would not be welcome arriving alone to a house of strangers. The newly married are more than willing to receive us.  
Don't answer.  
A.D."

Hermione remained silent for a moment, watching the black owl leave and return to heaven. Then she set fire to the note and watched it disintegrate, as well as the past of its original reality.  
The first step was taken.


	3. The Order of the Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of Dumbledore Hermione goes to his first encounter with the order of the phoenix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, ideas are flowing like a river around here.  
> I hope you guys are enjoying it, there are many adventures of our heroine coming.

Dumbledore was waiting in front of Hogwarts' gates, her serene gaze accompanied Hermione as she approached him and glimpsed the immense castle. The castle full of her happiest memories, but also the most terrible. The images of the burning building destroyed by bloody battles seemed only a horrible nightmare now.  
"Do you miss it, Miss Granger?" he asked.  
"As Harry liked to say, Hogwarts is my home." she looked at the construction with affection and nostalgia "This is where I became the witch I am today, this is where I met the best people." Harry's face, Gina, and her beloved Ron flashed through her mind and her chest tightened. She was there and had a mission, to make the future a better place for them, even if she could never be their best friend again. However, she was better than what happened.  
"Please, Miss Granger." Albus offered his arm to her and, holding his breath briefly, Hermione felt transported to another place. This one she had already visited once. Godric's Hollow.  
The image of that Christmas when they were attacked by Nagini flooded Hermione's mind before she could stop it, so she stopped and Albus realized.  
"I must say, you're a fantastic occlumente." Hermione averted her eyes from the Potter house and stared at him.  
"After going through a war like that, you learn to keep your mind constantly closed. And I must say there are few things I can't do after it, Albus."  
"How to have a sense of danger?" he provoked.  
"How to use my skills and intelligence to change the course of things".  
They stared at each other in silence for a while, making Hermione have to look away and check out the street. Those were dark times, an eminent attack could happen at any moment.  
"You know that from the moment you walk in here, there's no turning back, isn't there?" the old man said suggestively, "We can end the war or start a worse one, the scales might tend to the wrong side this time.  
The director's blue eyes looked at her wisely, sparkling under the moonlight. He was trying to dissuade her, but Hermione was more than ready for it.  
"Our side lost in the end, Dumbledore. And I won't stand here and watch the story unfold in a tragic way" she took a step closer to the director, who showed no fear of the convinced girl in front of her "Different from what you've always done, since the 50's". - She was referring to Tom Riddle, in which Dumbledore was negligent with him for years "Now if you'll allow me, I'd like us to start the meeting. - she pointed in a cordial way to the stone path through the snow in a direction that led to the door.  
Dumbledore went ahead, walking annoyingly slowly, and then knocked on the door three times, and the person who opened it pointed a wand at her.  
"What was the last thing you said to me before I graduated?  
"I believe, Mr. Potter, that it was: will the Ministry really have you as auror? May Merlin help us".  
"Welcome, Albus." Hermione paralyzed when Dumbledore got out of his way and allowed a wider field of vision, the man standing in front of the door was so... so... so much like his best friend it hurt. "Who is she?" James Potter asked by increasing the pressure on the wand.  
"Our new membership, please, Miss Granger." Dumbledore gave her a warning look and Hermione tried to change her appearance, reaching out to Harry's father, she reached out and introduced herself, almost failing due to the slight tremors at her fingertips.  
James shook his hand firmly, expressing total uncertainty in his brown eyes. The only thing that set him apart from Harry.  
As he passed by the Potter, Hermione came across the rest of the people who filled the entire Potter room. Dumbledore and Hermione were probably the last to arrive.  
The first ones Hermione noticed were the Longbottoms, shy, there in the corner next to Moody's Eye. There were the Weasleys, a bulging Molly belly accompanied by her husband Arthur, and also two twins who immediately reminded her of Fred and George, probably Molly's brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, those who would die in an ambush.  
There was the future thief Mundungus Fletcher. And then there was Lilian Potter sitting in the armchair where James had just nested.  
Oh, God. I was younger, less tired, and with much fewer scars than when I met him. And she saw Sirius Black and almost didn't recognize him, releasing the air through his mouth briefly and twisting so he could disguise it somehow. She had seen countless pictures of Sirius at that time, but she never thought he could be so beautiful. The leather jacket, the jeans, the gallant smile and look that he was throwing at her at that moment... Just very characteristic of a Sirius Black without all the torment and injustice that 13 years in Azkaban gave him.  
And then there was Peter. Hermione hardened, images of her tail in the Black mansion just watching her while she was tortured, while Bellatrix screamed and tortured her. Suddenly the hellish scar scratched and burned, Hermione automatically took her hand to her wrist, which did not escape Albus' attention who looked her in the eye with a warning. Peter was still one of them, he hadn't done anything yet, and she simply couldn't attack him in the middle of the order meeting.  
"Good evening everyone, I'd like you to meet our new addition, Hermione Jean Granger." The brunette was still staring at Peter when Albus began to speak and she forced herself, especially when she noticed Remus and Sirius staring at her.  
Hermione thought it was risky to divulge her name, but she found it difficult for anyone to locate a baby bunda and kill him at that time. After all, Hermione's baby didn't have any unfolding at that specific period of the war, so remaining with his original name wouldn't interfere in anything. Even because the baby Hermione in this reality no longer mattered, because the adult Hermione was from another reality, one where nobody killed her, one where she was the only one of the trio to survive a deadly war.  
"London is her hometown, but she spent some time in the United States of America, becoming a member of M.A.C.U.S.A and, attending to my call to join the cause, she returned to the country. It will be an impressive addition". The fun glow in her blue eyes made Hermione want to scream.  
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger." The first greeting came from young Lilian, who offered her a smile while caressing her husband's hand inattentively. Then several faces in the room greeted her as well.  
"You can just call me Hermione."  
"From her last name, everything indicates that she also has a target on her back." She hadn't noticed him, she was in the far corner of the room as if she was afraid of being identified there in the middle. It was as if he wasn't even there, but he was. As she always wore a black tunic, her hair drained and greasy at shoulder height making set with her nose and dark circles under her eyes, the only thing different was the years less. Snape.  
"Yes, I'm muggle-born. But I'm surprised that anyone in this room really cares." Of course, she had to act like she didn't know them, and since Snape had just been particularly rude to her, Hermione didn't find it too much to reciprocate the tone. The future potions teacher shouldn't have been waiting for that, since he bowed his eyebrow to her. "It's also a pleasure to meet you, Snape, Dumbledore has left me abreast of all the members of the order, exclusively you," she stared at him with her arms crossed in front of her chest, the slytherin raised his head slightly in defiance and arrogance, just as he did when Hermione was his student. Only this time, she wasn't and he didn't feel he had any power over her.  
"Dumbledore looked at Snape before going on: "We have to keep up with the new information, I've heard out loud that you-know-who is recruiting more and more people for his side, while our order is walking in turtle steps".  
"You know we can't recruit any Albus, by God, you know what would happen if we recruited the wrong people?" At the same time, Moody's look went to Hermione, Hermione looked to Peter. And returning to the man again, she noticed for the first time that Moody still had both eyes very well placed on his face. And that this was even scarier.  
"I have the information." She said directly to him but felt the look of everyone burning her "The Malfoy's have been great frequenters of Borgin and Burkes, however, never leave with anything.  
The room was silent and most didn't seem to know what Hermione wanted to get to, except the one who was the only one who had already had contact with the dark lord himself.  
"Tom Riddle worked at Borgin and Burkes," Snape explained shockingly, his gaze analyzing Hermione, probably surprised that she knew that information.  
"So you think they are working as informants?" Sirius' voice caught her attention, and she felt like a showcase mannequin, a mixture of fun and curiosity shining in the eyes of the arrogant Black. But so different from the look that Dumbledore directed to her. It was like she was a new creature discovered by Luna, being Sirius the Luna, and Hermione the creature.  
"It's a possibility. Burke, despite his bad nature, never got involved with Vol. Tom." she corrected herself when half the room seemed to hold her breath "But that doesn't mean it wasn't used as an owl by Tom, after all, it was through Burke's store that the dark lord got all the darkest material he wanted.  
After that the meeting continued for the next hour, Hermione almost didn't speak, analyzing thoroughly each member of the room, but avoiding at all costs to look at the bad predators. Her gaze would probably show the affection she had, and it was so risky to show... She couldn't reveal anything, and she kept silent for fear that she might say something that would reveal her secrets.  
"You're quiet, little bird." Hermione almost got out of her skin as she stared at the man next to her.  
"Sorry?"  
"Sirius Black." He made an exaggerated measure and she just stared at him with non-emotional eyes.  
"Yes, I already knew." She looked for Dumbledore and noticed that the old man was talking seriously to Moody, Snape, and the twins. Then she was forced to continue in Black's company. Looking was funny, funny in a sad way. It was like looking at two images that contrasted strongly, on one side a man disturbed for 13 years in Azkaban, with dementors around him sucking any trace of happiness and sanity. And now there was this Sirius, light, haughty, willing and healthy, someone who didn't carry in his expression the horror of a prison, the sadness of losing his friends... Only Sirius Black.  
"After shutting up Snevillus' mouth, and after you just shut up. I liked it a lot when you said," he smiled and Hermione stared at him without knowing exactly how to answer, "As I said, you shut up Snevillus, that's more than enough to have a friend around.  
"Snevillus?" she bowed her eyebrow, not stopping a small smile from reaching her lips.  
"A nickname we gave him at school, unlike you, we held it for much longer than in a brief meeting of the order." He was with a glass of what she believed to be apple cider, which led to his lips in a long sip. Hermione looked at Albus again and he was still compassionate about the other three men, seeming worried despite showing calm in his gestures. What did he intend? They didn't make a vow about him revealing to someone her place of origin, but it would be a very big oversight for him to reveal what she lived to someone. Albus wouldn't be able to, would he?  
"Ora pads, stop of pestering the novice." James appeared next to Sirius, accompanied by Remus, Lily, and Peter. Souvenirs of the low man with rodent features in the house of screams flooded his mind, how he managed to escape, and how all this brought him to that present moment. With her traveling into the past.  
Hermione thought about killing tail at least a hundred times since she thought about traveling back in time since it would avoid so many disasters, but she also knew that it could influence the war in a way she didn't want. So the tail must stay alive. For now.  
"I'm Lílian Potter, it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger. - The haughty redhead, who remembered her old friend Gina a lot, reached out to her.  
"Just Hermione, please." The brunette smiled and shook her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you too, it means to meet you even though I don't know everyone's name."  
"I'm Remus Lupin." said the shy, restrained man who seemed to be hiding behind Lily.  
"I'm Peter Pettigrew." She turned her gaze to the short, chubby man, her lips twitching slightly, her eyes turning once again to Dumbledore. She needed to get out of there, it was all very recent and Hermione thought she was more prepared for it. Merlin, she wanted to stupor him.  
"It's a pleasure." Her voice came out low and weak, and she forced her lips to form a smile.  
"We are dawns," Sirius said resuming his attention "What to say James and I, maybe we can have a productive conversation about what American magic laws are like.  
"Do you want this?" Remus provoked, humor on his lips. Hermione knew that Sirius was a player, so he was willing to play. Playing to get close to her, and that was not good at all, he was the godfather of her best friend, and every time she looked at him she suddenly remembered him in Grimmauld Place.  
"Now Moony, I'm just a professional in search of new experiences." The way his eyebrow danced to her made Hermione laugh low to Sirius, and by his look, that had been the wrong attitude.  
"Moony?" she asked facing the werewolf "Interesting nickname. Hermione needed to bond with them, needed to stay close to them, needed to keep Peter away, showed that his loyalty was as weak as a toothpick holding a bridge.  
"Our group has some nicknames." James intervened quickly, all five seemed tense all of a sudden, including Sirius himself "I'm Prongs, Sirius is Padfoot, and Peter is Wormtail.  
"Wormtail? Like a mouse?" she said staring at the chubby man "Do you scare Pettigrew easily?"  
"I-I-I... well no, I'm Gryffindor's after all." He replied by not finding her gaze, Hermione needed to stop at that moment. Mainly because Remus and Lilian, the most observant of the group, started looking at her suspiciously.  
"Right, when I went to Hogwarts before I moved to the United States of America, I was selected for Ravenclaw. Lied Hermione.  
"How old did you leave London?" questioned Potter.  
"Twelve years," Hermione said, she found it difficult for them to remember her clearly since she was theoretically a year older than they were.  
"I don't remember you." Said Remus.  
"I'm 21 years old, I'm older than you, and let's face it, I'm not very noteworthy.  
"I'd say the opposite." Sirius gallantly said, and Hermione felt her cheeks warm for a brief moment.  
"Dumbledore confided in me that you got married a short time ago. Hermione turned his attention away from the couple holding hands. "Congratulations, I hope you have a long and prosperous marriage." And she would make sure of that this time.  
"Thank you, we got married about a month ago. We wish you were there, our wedding was full of allies" Lily lowered her voice a little to talk to Hermione "Sometimes I think they went there just to take care of order business, it would be good for someone to have fun" they laughed together.  
"That hurts Mrs. Potter, I was the soul of that party, a wonderful dancer."  
"It's true you even danced with my grandmother," said Peter embarrassed, and Sirius blushed his cheeks slightly when Hermione looked at him.  
"She was a very good-looking old lady if you ask me," defended Black.  
"I think I know who's the fun one then," Hermione commented with a smile and for a millisecond her eyes met, and it was... strange. The irises grey as a stormy sky against the amber in the Gryffindor's gaze.  
"Miss Granger" Albus called her, her eyes analyzing her scene surrounded by the naughty "Time to go."  
"Right, of course." They were the first to leave, so they had to say goodbye to everyone, Hermione passing one by one, seeing the faces that would die in the future if she did nothing. But she would, that's why she was there. "Thanks for the welcome."  
"See you soon." Sirius unexpectedly took her right hand between her fingers and kissed, throwing a languid smile when Hermione felt her cheeks warm.  
As they walked out the door, they walked down the sidewalk in complete silence until Dumbledore turned to her and asked "What do you intend to do first?  
"Save Regulus Black."


	4. New alliances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus intercepts Hermione in his mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to get interesting. See you.

Finding Regulus was a bit difficult, after all as the only Black heir still available in the family, he was constantly at the address of Grimmauld Place, number 12. A place where Hermione was not welcome. And as a new agent in that equation, to be seen lurking in the lives of diners of death was not something she wanted at the time.  
No one unwanted could notice her at that time yet. That's why a polyjuice potion and a gray hair turned her into an elderly woman, who particularly liked to sit on her transfigured seat, strategically positioned near the Blackhouse, while magically knitting random pieces of clothing. At that moment Hermione observed the middle-aged woman apparated in front of the residence, dark clothes and an arrogant face, Hermione remembered very well the insults of her portrait in the future, alerting anyone who had ears that a mundblood was staining the "Toujours Pur" sanctuary and that she should be killed immediately.  
The scar on her arm scratched and burned again, as a reminder of who she was. As if she could forget that for even a moment.  
She saw Regulus only twice that week and noticed how much he looked like Sirius, maybe a little louder and certainly much darker, serious and restrained. Hermione wondered how she could talk to him without looking like a madwoman or without him throwing her an unforgivable one. But she knew she had to be quick, he died at 18, and for what she knew, disappearing without explanation still in 1979.  
"You know, it took me a while to associate his smell with the right person." Hermione, or rather, the knitting old lady, jumped on her seat when the man appeared beside her.  
"Lupin." Hermione said low looking madly to the other side of the street, they couldn't be seen together, that could put everything to lose.  
"Would you like to leave here and explain to me why you are standing in front of Sirius' mother's house while you are not in your usual way? Or would you rather wait for Walburga to recognize his son's best werewolf friend outside his house accompanied by an old woman who doesn't live around here?"  
Hermione opened and closed his mouth a few times and then got up when he signaled to walk north of the street. They walked in silence, Hermione wondering if Dumbledore revealed anything to them, would he be stupid enough to do that? Remus, always so... cautious simply handed over that he was a werewolf. What if that weren't Remus?  
Hermione abruptly pushed the man toward the wall of an alleyway through which they passed, and quickly removed the wand from his waist, aiming disguisedly at his neck.  
"What was the first thing Snape said?" she asked lowly, being aware that they could be caught at any moment.  
"I'm surprised that anyone in this room cares about the fact that you're a born bundle". he murmured staring defiantly and slightly panting, even if the wand was pointed at his neck at that moment.  
She then walked away.  
"I'm sorry about that, but... I don't trust anyone, not here," she referred to the current context of the past, but Remus would probably imagine they were talking about London.  
"Let's go to my apartment, we need to talk." Hermione lowered his wand, but he didn't take his outstretched arm off the werewolf's chest, which was a bit useless because if he wanted to take it down without magic it would be too easy.  
"I don't know if I should do that," she said, slowly pulling herself off him.  
"Unless you wanted the five of us to know that you're watching Sirius' family..." Hermione couldn't do that, especially since any information Peter obtained could be used as a weapon by Voldermot, it was too risky.  
"Let's go." She held his arm staring at the ground and taking a long sigh.  
They apparated, she didn't know very well the place they were in, but it was in the bundled part of London and different from what Hermione imagined for a werewolf at that time, the building was not bad at all. After three flights of stairs, they finally reached the apartment number 33. Remus opened the door and stretched out his hand for her to enter, reluctantly she entered and came across a nice ... male apartment. Dark furniture as well as the walls, some things scattered and a liquor cabinet insight and very well stocked. Something she imagined very well when it came to Sirius Black. In the other corner, however, there was a bookcase full of books. Something she imagined very well when it came to Remus Lupin.  
"Dumbledore told you?" Remus asked, closing the door behind him, Hermione wondered for a moment what he was talking about, but the countenance on his face only indicated one thing.  
"He implied that the order had all kinds of participants, especially when he said I was born a bundle. He didn't tell me it was you, of course, he wouldn't be so indiscreet, but when Sirius called you Moony, well...".  
"Damn Sirius!" he passed his hand through his hair irritated and Hermione sympathized, despite his age in his time, Professor Lupin did not act very well with the fact of being a werewolf, and Hermione imagined that in that period was even worse. He had just left Hogwarts and for what the brunette knew, he would be unemployed for a long time.  
"Hey, it's okay." she approached and touched her arm involuntarily "I know what it's like not to be welcome in a world like ours, the snobbish looks, the way people treat you like your nothing but dust..." she said remembering the years at Hogwarts, the provocations of the slytherin students, the persecutions you suffered during the war, from Bellatrix. The scar hurt once again and Hermione let go of Remus so she could hold her wrist. "Anyway, I met a wonderful werewolf once, he was very intelligent and talented. And if you want to know he formed a beautiful family, with the woman of his dreams and had a son, he was even a teacher at a renowned school. All this drug of prejudice is just the drug of the ruling class wanting to stay in the domain" she looked in his eyes when she said, "And I really don't care a bit about this if I would never be here with you".  
Remus was silent for countless seconds, just staring at her as if another head had been born on her shoulder. Hermione imagined that that was not the kind of comment Remus often received from people and felt sorry.  
"What were you doing watching Walburga Black?" was the first thing he said after the support she offered, Hermione imagined that he was suspicious of her anyway. By Merlin, she would also be, a complete stranger who knows her biggest secret and who watches over the house of the mother of one of her best friends... She's someone the Golden trio would certainly investigate for a long year.  
"I'm not after the lovely Walburga." Hermione felt the bitter taste in his mouth as he walked up to the liquor cabinet, grabbed a glass, and lifted a bottle of Bourbon, stood up to Remus and he nodded accordingly. The double dose was for her, of course. "I was after Regulus Black," she said after a sip of the drink.  
"My brother?" Hermione almost dropped the glass when she heard the voice coming from the hall next to her. A shirtless, disheveled Sirius, displaying the various rune trunk link tattoos, was standing there staring with sudden interest, but now there was nothing amusing or malicious in his gaze. He was haughty, angry, worried, and threatening. Hermione never speculated much about the relationship between the Black brothers, but it was certainly troubled. "What do you want with that diner cub?" he got closer to her, stopping at inches. And Hermione realized that although he was totally against his brother, apparently Sirius would be willing to tear the head off anyone who threatened him.  
Lovely.  
"I thought it would just be us, Lupin." Hermione poured the rest of the drink starting to feel a slight pain in the back of her head, she was willing to take it easy and suddenly she had Remus and Sirius staring at her as if she were the Dark Lord himself and couldn't even get in touch with the Regulus Black drug. At least she knew he was alive, she just didn't know until when.  
"I didn't know he was home if you want to know," said the werewolf sitting on the sofa.  
"Hum, a clandestine encounter." Sirius' loftiness and sarcasm made Hermione arch her eyebrow "Well I'm not sure what brought you here, but you quoted my brother and said you wanted him, tell me, Granger, are you hunting my little brother?" Sirius slowly removed the glass from Hermione's hand, depositing it beside the table and surrounding it against her "What do you want with my family?  
"Your parents are connected to the lord of darkness," she answered, looking into his eyes, feeling the rapid breath beat against his cheek, with much specificity she could say she smelled even the shampoo he used. Eucalyptus by the way. "And Regulus was pressed to join the snake clan. But what nobody knows is that he's not so bad".  
Sirius remained silent for a while and then let out a laugh by the nose moving away.  
"Good last time I saw him, he accused me of being a bloody traitor, leading me to understand that he was much better for doing everything my sweet mother wanted.  
"He was young Sirius."  
""You're from Gryffindor, Regulus isn't." dared Hermione in a low voice.  
"It doesn't matter to me." He reached for the bourbon and took it in the neck. "If you investigated so much about our life, you should know that my brother is weak and that he would never fight the current."  
"Regulus will try something against the lord of darkness and..." Hermione didn't know how to go on, she didn't know who she should tell about the Horcruxes yet, she didn't know who could get involved without drastically changing the past. She would never forgive herself if she simply prevented the birth of Harry or any of his friends.  
"And what Granger?" said Remus staring at her.  
"He will die."  
The silence took over the whole room, except for Remus who let out a sigh and tapped his hand on the elder Black's shoulder as a sign of comfort, this Black who faced me as if I were someone who had just tried to kill him. After a few minutes, the situation became uncomfortable and her look went towards the door, would it be too horrible for her to just leave? The answers she could offer seemed to be of no interest to Sirius.  
And then, just like she did with Remus in that alley, Sirius pointed his wand at her, right in the middle of her face, without touching her, just transmitting her anger through her eyes.  
"Tell me now what you know about my brother, Hermione Granger." The wand didn't even shake, probably a trick she learned by becoming auror "You came from M.A.C.U.S.A, what do they know about my brother?  
"M.A.C.U.S.A. doesn't even have an interest in this war if you want to know. Hermione sighed "They already have their own problems."  
"So why do you want my brother?" he made a threatening move with the wand, it would be attacked by the best friend's godfather for trying to save their lives. Karma is a bitch.  
How could this become more stupid?  
And then she found herself without choices since she arrived. As much as she had planned her steps, including this weird alliance with the two naughty ones in that room had absolutely not been an option before. Hermione sighed longingly.  
"How much do you know about Horcruxes?"


	5. The plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione involves Remus and Sirius in their mission in the past.

The two men on the couch shared a bottle of firewhisky, now much more tormented than when Hermione first met them at that time. And that was one of the reasons Hermione didn't want to involve the bad guys. She thought it would be wiser to involve the Prewett twins initially, they were smart, creative, and knew a lot about the art of darkness from what Dumbledore of the future told her. The two would be useful and it would be a bonus for her to stay close to them, thus being able to prevent their imminent death.  
But nowhere she was involving Sirius and Remus in this mess.  
Remus despite everything seemed calm, probably controlling the sleeping beast inside her at that moment, listening carefully to Hermione's explanation, about how she knew about this kind of magic (she lied of course), how many there were, what were the objects, where they were, and worst, what they would have to do to destroy it.  
Sirius was more explosive, he was a Black after all. He let out things like "Snake face bastard!", "Stupid Slughorn!", "I'll still kill my mother, I swear!", "Damn Regulus imbecile" and finally "I need a drink".  
And she watched them drinking for about 10 minutes in complete silence. Hermione patiently waiting for them to assimilate the information.  
"What do you intend to do?" was Remus who asked, her eyes meeting hers.  
"Destroy them." She sat in the armchair in front of the couch they were on. Using her support knees she stared at them "I heard from above that Regulus knows about the medallion and will try to destroy it, but he has no idea what it will be like in the cave. He can't go there alone, he won't be able to destroy it himself. He will try everything, but there are only two known things that can destroy a part of Voldemort's soul".  
"What?" asked Sirius staring at him with the storm irises.  
"Basilisk venom and Fiendfyre." The two men had a nasal laugh.  
"Great, that's the kind of thing we'll easily find around the corner."  
"I'm a Black. And I don't think my parents can control Fiendfyre, that's just for very powerful witches," Sirius said to her face, Hermione just shrugged and Sirius rolled her eyes. "Can you control it?  
"Well... I came prepared." she read so many books about it, she heard Dumbledore from the painting explaining it so many times, she practiced it so and so many times... She almost destroyed an entire foil when she failed to control the flames. "And I know where to find a basilisk".  
"How can you know so many things?" Remus was impressed.  
"A lot of research, I spent countless months preparing to take down the dark lord." Years to be more specific. Since you met Harry. Hermione corrected himself mentally. She tried to smile at them to pass security, but through their faces, she knew she failed.  
"Does Dumbledore know about this information? Remus questioned.  
"Yes, but I asked him not to interfere. Dumbledore can be quite... manipulative and biased."  
"Better define this classification," said Remus, and Hermione found Sirius' look, what he found there indicated that Black also knew the answer.  
She pulled the sleeve of her blouse slowly, revealing her forearm, and then removed the spell that hid her scar. The word that haunted her all her life witch appeared before her eyes, red as blood as if she had never been healed before. Her eyes overflowed with one or two tears when it throbbed.  
"Bewitched blade." she clarified before they could ask.  
"W-who? Why?" Remus asked, analyzing the word on her forearm. M-U-N-D-B-L-O-O-D.  
"It was a while ago. A commensal of death. And you know why. - She dried her tears and sighed - My friends and I were on the run when we were captured, they found something very important in my hands. And then they locked my friends up and tortured me until I spoke.  
Hermione felt her body chill and hurt with the memory, the memory of Bella's body hovering over her, her breath against her face as she screamed at Hermione, as she tortured and everyone in the room watched without doing anything.  
"They used an unforgivable?" asked Sirius even if she already knew the answer.  
"Yes, and then to always remind me that I was not welcome in this world, they stuck that word in my forearm. I have never shouted so much in all my life". Hermione remembered Bellatrix screaming to tell him how he had gotten the sword, the people around him just looking at her, Peter looking at her. "And then, Black" she passed her hand over her forearm again, deluding the scar and pulling the sleeve of her blouse "Don't you think this is a good enough reason?  
"What happened to your friends?" he asked, of course, he would like to get to the heart of the matter.  
"Dead." Ron, Harry, and Gina's bodies passing through his head "Only I survived, only I."  
"Damn Hermione, I'm sorry," Remus said. "If I lost my friends I'd feel like... I feel like I'd go crazy."  
Hermione made an even greater effort not to sigh or start crying, Remus was alone for so long after Halloween of '81... And then Sirius came back and was taken from him again, and in the end, Remus left the little son behind.  
"I will help you," said Sirius, "I cannot allow you to kill yourself."  
"I would never ask this of you, of you," she shook her head. "I just need you to promise me that this conversation will never leave this room.  
"No way." Remus said standing up, "It involves all of us. Our friends, our families, and the drug of the witch world. You have the answer, you have the Achilles' heel of the dark lord and you know that doing this alone just won't work.  
Hermione sighed, she knew she would have to accept help, and unless she obliviously got them, they would get in the way of her plans.  
"You involved my brother and told me that he regretted it, that he wants to end the lord" Sirius also stood up and walked to her, extending his hand to her. "You gave me a gift that I never thought I could have, we will save my brother and we will bring him to our side.  
"We need you unknown," Remus said, stretching out his other hand.  
Hermione sighed resignedly and held both hands.  
"Right, but first we have to make an unbreakable vow," she looked into their eyes, one at a time. "They won't tell Lily or James or Peter. Neither of them can be involved with this."  
Lily and James couldn't know why that could prevent Harry's birth.  
Peter couldn't know why he would betray them.  
"James is my best friend, it would be unfair not to tell." Hermione tried to pull her hand from his fingers, but Sirius held it even tighter. "However, if it's for their safety, I'll top it.  
And so they did. Lily, James, and Peter would never have known of her undertaking, and Hermione felt safer that way.  
"What do we do first?" Remus asked.  
"Kill the basilisk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even today I will post the next chapter (my favorite so far).


	6. Chamber of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione, Sirius and Remus go to the chamber of secrets in search of the basilisk.

Hermione wondered for the tenth time in that minute if what they would do would work.  
It was during a visit of the students to Hogsmead. Hogwarts would be significantly empty, decreasing the probability of some snooping around in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
Remus, Sirius, and she went into Myrtle's bathroom and climbed the strongest barriers of protection they knew to prevent any innocent from entering and being killed. Of course, they warned Dumbledore of what they would do and the teacher was ready to make Fawkes available to them.  
"And how do you intend to do that?" asked Sirius leaning against a sink looking at her as Hermione removed her cape and left it in the corner of the bathroom.  
"Well, with that," she pulled out of her little extendable pouch the sword of Godric Griffindor, the metal banging against the floor when she could barely support her weight. The eyes of both of them rolled up and they came closer to see better as if she had just removed an alien from her purse.  
"How the hell did you get that?"  
"You must have been Griffinoria's to get it," they both said in my time.  
"Dumbledore gave it to me," not that it was that time though. "Only she was able to kill a basilisk before. And then when I kill him with that sword, the venom basilisk will contact her, so that only then can I destroy the horcruxes.  
"Why can the basilisk venom destroy a Horcrux?" Remus questioned.  
"Well, the only known things capable of destroying a Horcrux would be the remorse of the person who created them, and I think it's obvious that if there's one thing Tom Riddle doesn't have, it's remorse. And the second way would be something so destructive that the Horcrux can't magically restore itself, as is the case with basilisk poison.  
"I still wonder how you know the monster in the secret chamber is a basilisk." Sirius studied her with her stormy eyes, which made her swallow it dry for a moment, and to deflect the subject she put her sword back in her pocket.  
"I have my sources." She simply said and then headed for the sinks in the bathroom, counted, and then pulled the lock. The sink started to move away and open.  
"Are you sure you just can't teach us to control the damn fire?" said Sirius staring at the black tube that was unfolding into Hogwarts' basement.  
"It took me months and I hurt myself a lot in the process, we don't have all that time and life force. Hermione answered him "But feel free to give up, I intended to do it alone anyway... You don't have to be part of this, I'd even think it better not to and...".  
"No way, little bird." Sirius said pointing his finger at her "What kind of hero would I be if I let a lady face a creature I had never heard of and excessively deadly and dangerous?  
"Someone with sense, maybe," he rebuked her with his look and she laughed.  
"It's been a long time since anyone opened that." Hermione took fright with Myrtle's voice inside the bathroom "Are you the heir to Slytherin? The Chosen One?"  
"Tom Riddle?' Hermione laughed "I think he'd kill you again if he heard you comparing him to me."  
"Do you know who killed Myrtle Warren?" Sirius and Remus asked at the same time, totally shocked.  
"He was always strange... but so beautiful..." murmured the weeping Myrtle while flying over them, passing by objects without even noticing them. "He didn't even give me a chance to have a life, and now I'm here, walking between pipes hearing things I didn't want, seeing people who have already graduated, Hello Sirius is still in good shape as always..." the ghost blinked his eyes covered with glasses to the older Black.  
"Thank you?" he said uncertainly, still shocked by the previous information.  
"Myrtle, I'm sorry to disturb your flirtation, but we need to move on, there's a lot to do." Said Hermione in a bad mood.  
"Jealous, love?" Sirius said suggestively to her.  
Turning her eyes and trying to ignore Remus' biased look at the two of them, Hermione pulled three black handkerchiefs out of her purse.  
"I know what's down there, but I don't know where it is. The most important thing is not to look directly in his eyes, that is death. That's how Murta Warren died so long ago." Remus and Sirius swallowed dry, looking briefly at the ghost leaning against the wall staring at them with interest "That's why I need you to use your senses, especially you Remus, your keen hearing and smell will help us a lot down there. "She put herself behind him and passed the blindfold through his eyes, for a brief moment he held her strong hand as if to stop her, finally noticing his intention, he let her go and she tied the blindfold firmly in his eyes. "I can't risk your lives, so I just need you to help me with my senses" she went to Sirius and passed the blindfold through his eyes too.  
"You know I always imagined what it would be like to be blindfolded by a girl" Black's malicious smile, did something to Hermione and she caught herself staring at his beautiful white teeth for brief seconds "But I never imagined it would be in this context". Sirius brushed her fingers lightly behind the back of her hands and Hermione had to laugh with herself.  
"Wands in hand please follow my voice. To go down it will be like a slide, I don't think it's feasible to use magic yet, let's keep our life force down there". Hermione blindfolded herself as well and held Sirius' hand tight, she believed that Sirius did the same with Remus, and then she took three steps until she reached the void in front of her. "I will jump, count to three, and jump behind me."  
And then she went down the tunnel until she fell on top of what she believed to be dust and bones. She then stood up quickly to avoid being crushed by Sirius and had to resist the temptation to remove the blindfold to observe the environment. A thump and a groan later, Sirius was cursed in a low voice.  
"Hermione..." he called and then a hand touched his breasts.  
"Hey!" she slapped his hand and he laughed.  
"Wow, so-sorry, I was trying to find you."  
And then Remus's next thump came, he found them more easily due to his keen sense of smell and Hermione thought it best that he went ahead.  
Then they arrived at the entrance of the secret chamber, the one Rony and she opened for the last time, the one they kissed for the last time. Automatically her hand flew to the time-turner hidden between her clothes and she squeezed her relief, the homesickness was deafening sometimes.  
Hermione recited the words in a snake tongue, just as she remembered Ron and Harry saying.  
"Do you have the gift?" Remus seemed surprised and Sirius shook his hand even more.  
"It's more for tireless repetition." They passed through the kind of door, Hermione stopping at the entrance and drawing Godric's sword from his purse. The sword banging against the ground when his hand did not support the weight.  
"Little bird, don't you want me to do this for you?" Hermione ignored the nickname and simply answered no.  
"I need you to help me with the magic, and Remus to guide me, I won't be able to kill him without you, mainly because none of us can see him.  
And then they walked and Hermione felt her shoes getting wet, they were in the middle of the chamber where she and Ron destroyed the cup. Hermione's heart weighed and hurt, her eyes filling with tears, there was their first kiss. The first step to the life they should have had, and it was taken from them. And she missed Ron so much that it was hard to breathe.  
"All right Hermione?" Sirius shook her hand when she saw she was tense.  
"Okay, we just need to lure him in."  
"Hey, YOUR COLLECTION NOJENTA, CLEAR ME!" cried Sirius, scaring Hermione.  
"Maybe he'll come now, right? For all I know, he loves to attack children," murmured Remus, making her laugh.  
"I'm an enemy of the heir," Hermione said, letting them both go.  
"Hermione, what are you going to do?" Remus asked, taking a step in her direction when she started walking in a straight line, the memory of the camera flooding her mind.  
About a minute later when Hermione threw a ball of light to the ceiling of the camera, an explosion was heard and Sirius and Remus shouted his name.  
"I hear something crawling," said Remus grabbing Sirius' arm and pulling it toward where Hermione's scent was.  
"The time has come!" she shouted, "Don't take that blindfold off for anything, not even if I say I'm dying!"  
"What? You're crazy!"  
"He's here!" interrupted Remus "In front of Hermione."  
"Sirius, I need you to aim your head!" Hermione shouted, raising his sword with a bit of difficulty, but as his courage grew it seemed that the sword became lighter and lighter.  
"Ok, but where is the head of this thing?" he shouted.  
"Probably coming towards me," said Hermione trying to hear better around him.  
And then Sirius cast spells upwards that only seemed to annoy the basilisk even more. Hermione stumbled on what he imagined to be a part of his body and decided that there would be a good place to take the first sip, she struck him with her sword and the basilisk screamed deafeningly. When she took out the sword, Hermione was thrown by the force with which the basilisk used his tail to hit her, she was thrown towards the wall and fell with a groan of pain.  
"Hermione all right?" cried Sirius between spells.  
"He's coming after you Hermione," said Remus, pulling out his wand and trying to change the attention of the huge snake.  
It was then that Hermione remembered Harry, "I stuck the sword in his head.  
"I let it come!" cried Hermione.  
"What? Are you crazy? His poison is fatal! He'll kill her," cried Remus in quick steps toward her.  
"Let him come!" cried Hermione to Remus and stood up, the sword this time steady in only one hand. She sharpened her ears and heard the creature crawl, he shouted once more as he invested toward her, like a stupid man warning his attack. She imagined his head and offensive red eyes staring at her, as she saw in the mirror in her second year. Wishing to hurt her, her huge fangs coming toward her if she failed she would die. And it would all end there. For her, for Remus, and for Sirius.  
Harry would still have his godfather. She would make sure of it.  
With a loud cry that made her vocal cords fail Hermione raised her sword and pressed up, that's when she found a relatively hard surface compared to the air, and then the blood flowed all over it. For a moment she wondered if it was her blood. The animal grunted for countless moments and then it fell, the sound of its fall radiating all over the damned secret chamber of the maniac founder of Hogwarts. Hermione felt her body wet, she just didn't know if it was from the water she was expelling or if it was from the creature's blood that seemed to flow like a waterfall over her.  
"Hermione was done," said Sirius pulling her from where she was when the creature seemed to have had its inevitable end. The brunette dropped her sword on the floor with a thud, took off her blindfold, and looked at the relieved face of the unbearably clean and dry Black "You did it."  
"I didn't tell you not to take the drug off the blindfold," she said breathlessly and thrilled, the adrenaline flowing fast along with the bloodstream in her veins. He pulled her into a strong celebratory hug and Hermione let herself go, feeling happy for a long time.  
"That was amazing," said Remus with a bright smile. "Damn, you just stuck Godric's sword into Salazar's fucking pet skull, Hermione, that was fucking amazing!  
"It was, wasn't it?" she said, letting go of Sirius and seeing that she soiled him with blood "Uh, sorry about that."  
"It's ok, you can do whatever you want today," he smiled at her, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen Sirius give, and then her vision began to blur momentarily and she staggered.  
"I guess it's not just his blood after all." Sirius supported her before she finally fell - Fawkes... I need you to talk to Dumbledore too... I need you to call...  
Fawkes.  
But she couldn't tell since she gave herself up to unconsciousness.


	7. The discovery of Sirius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione's nightmares make her tell the truth to Sirius.

"Mudblood... Mudblood... you are the scum of the witch world, you should be dead". Hermione ran through the trees, but Bellatrix's voice sounded closer and closer to her, her arm was throbbing and moistened by the blood flowing from the wound. "Mudblood, it's no use running, I'm stronger, more powerful, do you know the Longbottoms story? The macabre laughter followed her voice and Hermione looked back, she stumbled and fell, on her back, as she had been in the Malfoy mansion and suddenly she screamed because Bellatrix lifted the cursed blade and smiled with her poor teeth "Stupid bitch, it's time to show your place in our world.  
"Please don't.... please don't" Hermione screamed and cried as the blade came into contact with her skin once again, her lungs burned, her throat thickened, her voice failed and torture continued.

"Hermione... Hermione wakes up... please little bird...".  
And then she returned.  
Someone's arms surrounded her, bringing her against her hard chest and fast heart. The smell of eucalyptus flooded her sense of smell and she realized it was Sirius Black there with her, hugging her while she felt soaked in sweat and tears, her heart beating in her chest and the scar beating like hell. She must have forgotten the dreamless potion, that's what happened when she didn't take it.  
"It's all right little bird..." Sirius made lazy circles with her thumbs on her back. When Hermione lifted her chin to look at him, she noticed the purple bags below her eyes reminding Sirius of his time tormented by terrible nightmares. What happened? Where was she?  
Granger only vaguely remembered what happened on camera, but satisfactorily remembering to have killed the basilisk.  
"What happened?" he questioned in a whisper due to a dry throat, he felt his tongue like sandpaper and although he had just woken up, Hermione never felt so tired.  
"You fainted in the chamber, right after the basilisk inoculated the poison in you." He helped Hermione lie back on his pillows and conjured up a glass of water "Your action was fast enough, in a matter of seconds you fell and started getting very pale, Remus and I didn't know exactly what to do... You had warned us, but we didn't know how to proceed, apparently, Dumbledore knew and so he sent his phoenix to us, she saved you..." Sirius' jaw was tight, his facial muscles pulled in a frown of grief "We almost lost you... It was frightening and I never felt so... helpless... I'm sorry Hermione..."  
"It's all right Sirius" she reached for her hand and gave a firm shake "Really, I survived".  
"Right, but apparently you were weaker than usual for the basilisk poison, when you didn't wake up for days I started to wonder if I would wake up..." he looked away, the shadow of his eyes suddenly getting darker and heavier.  
"Days?" she asked breathlessly.  
"We brought you here instead of leaving you in the castle, you unconscious for four days.  
"Four days?" Hermione said in shock and her throat hurt, forcing her to leave Sirius' hand and drink some more water.  
"We brought you to our apartment, this is my room. Remus is sleeping now, it's four in the morning".  
"Hermione looked at the double bed with a face.  
"Easy little bird, I slept very well in an improvised bed on the floor. And before you ask me why, I even tried to sleep on the couch, but you spent the last few days delirious."  
"Delirious?" Hermione asked in shock. That was definitely not part of the plan.  
"Yes, I thought you had woken up a few hours after we got here, but you were having a nightmare, so as not to wake Remus I silenced the room... He would go crazy with the things you were saying and screaming... I didn't want to worry about him."  
"I'm sorry, Sirius." Hermione ran her hand through her hair, her night terror was horrible to hear. Luna always woke her up with a horrified face covered in tears.  
"What happened to you Hermione?" he held her hand again, getting closer to her on the bed "You were tortured, weren't you? You shouted so many names yesterday, including one in particular".  
"Bellatrix." They said together, Hermione had no way out of that. She didn't plan it, it was unforeseen. She could never run away from that question, so she did the only thing she could.  
"Can you get my little extendable bag?" Sirius nodded and stood up, the little bag was on a dresser in the room, he handed it over, and Hermione searched until she found a bottle. "Can you lock the door?" Sirius raised his own wand briefly and a click was heard "And you must promise me that what you hear and see inside this room will never leave" she stretched out her hand to him.  
"An unbreakable vow?" he questioned by looking at his pale fingers. "Is it that bad?"  
"It's worse than that, what I'm about to show you... it'll change everything." she sighed, "I imagined myself showing this to a lot of people except you." She began to pull her hand out, but before she could pull it out for good, Sirius picked it up.  
"I promise not to reveal this to anyone, not under penalty of death, torture, or the like, if I do, I'll be dead." A light shone between them and then it was done.  
Merlin. It was done. He promised.  
"You wouldn't have a pensieve, would you?" she asked, looking at her hands still together.  
"No, Granger." He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. Hermione let go of him, suddenly feeling strange by the familiarity of someone's touch, of his touch. Then he stretched his hand inside the bag and searched for a while, the sound of books falling and glass breaking. "Damn, what have you got in there?" asked Sirius with his frowning eyebrows.  
"A lifetime, literally." She finally found the portable pensieve she developed on her own, she knew that at some point she would have to use it there. She only thought it would be when she revealed the truth to Regulus and Snape since she had concluded that revealing the truth to marauders was completely risky since the future involved Pettigrew's betrayal.  
"Do you have a Hermione Granger pensieve?" his gray eyes shone surprised as the object floated in front of them until it fixed itself in a point before the older Black and the water that composed it started to spiral. Hermione lifted the bottle with his most specific memories, a whole life of feeling, a whole life of misery and persecution, a bloody game where he fought for Harry and himself.  
"Your answers will be some memories away." she poured the contents of the flask until the last fog fell in a spiral in that little sink. "I'm muggle born, so what you'll see will be things that have happened to me since the first moment I stepped in Hogwarts".  
"Hogwarts?" her eyebrows almost joined in a single line while facing her. Hermione simply pointed to the pensieve.  
"I'm sorry." Her voice came out low before Sirius looked at her for the last time before plunging her face. It was the last time he looked at her as a stranger, when he emerged from there, he would probably yell at her, point his wand promising to kill her while asking a million questions.  
Hermione felt like a wrecking ball, which would destroy Sirius in that exact second. And that was terrible.  
Time passed slowly and Hermione watched carefully all the reactions of his body, the tension in his shoulders, as he tightened his fists and got scared at various points. And after what seemed like an eternity, Sirius emerged from the bottom breathing deep, his hair incredibly dry even if they had been immersed for a long time in the pensieve. "The drug of a time traveler" he got up from his bed, walking away as if she were a leper "You are a fucking time traveler... " he passed his hand through his hair "Coming from a future where nobody I know is alive, a future where I went to fucking Azkaban for a crime I didn't commit, where James' only son suffers for long years to finally have a fucking death in a death eater attack, where you were tortured by the same woman who killed me in the fucking ministry I go through every day? Fuck Hermione!" he reached the lampshade and threw it on the wall, the piece breaking into a thousand pieces, making the chestnut shrink briefly, pulling the knees against the chest "James? My best friend... And his wife... Lily... dead... Because Peter fucking Pettigrew betrayed them... That treacherous rat..." and then he put the pieces together "That's why you acted so strange when you met him, we didn't understand why you looked at him as if you wanted to kill him and now.... now I understand! " he then left to his desk, spreading papers in an outbreak and shouting curses on behalf of Peter "That bastard shit, we were the only ones trying to be friends with them, we treated him like a brother and he will be a coward damned who surrender the lives of his best friends to that ... He'll be able to resurrect the lord of darkness once again... Fuck! My best friend is dead in his time... And I will be the shadow of what I once was... because that filthy rat will betray us..." he walked toward the dresser next to Hermione and took his wand. The chestnut would have to be quick. Hermione closed the door as soon as Sirius opened it, she ran in the direction, blocking Sirius' exit and throwing another silencing spell as a precaution. "I want to kill him and now I'll do it right, I won't leave even the damn finger behind... Because it will be for real and this time it will be fair my years in Azkaban". "Sirius no!" she spread her little hands on his hard chest, pushing him back, without getting the slightest success "I didn't tell you so that it would happen, I didn't come back so that it would happen? Damn it! That's why I didn't want to involve any of you, it's delicate that one of yours betrayed you... I shouldn't have told..." she raised her eyes to their eyes, the fury was shining there. The purest and most uncontrollable. If she let him out, everything would be lost and they would lose an important ally like Sirius, except that the unfolding of the war would never be the same and she didn't know what else she could expect. Granger couldn't allow him to leave or everything she planned would fall apart. "Give me your wand," she asked in a low tone.  
"No." He replied, "I need to stupor that rat even today or I will never have peace.  
"Sirius Orion Black, give me your wand. Now." she extended one of her hands asking for the damn wand, "Please... I just killed a basilisk, I must be breathless, unscathed, and certainly sore. I understand your anger, you saw what could happen, I lived what happened and I'm telling you that if you don't give me this fucking wand now, I sincerely can't guarantee that the future will be different or even that it won't be much worse than what happened. Please."  
They were silent, Sirius and she battled with their eyes, fury against stubbornness.  
"You're a fucking Gryffindor, aren't you?" he threw the wand in her hand and walked away in the furious room. "I just don't understand. Why he did it... Weren't we... enough?" he sat on the bed rubbing his face.  
"It took me a while to understand that some people weren't brave enough." She sat down next to him and held his hand "And the only courage Peter showed was to betray his friends to join the lord who threatened him as if all the others hadn't been threatened. And you know what else? I think he enjoyed the cruelty, of being loyal to those who saw use in him". Sirius raised his eyes to face it and shook his hand lightly "He was there you know. In the room, while they tortured me. He didn't even blink any differently with my screams..." she took a deep breath, images of that day flooding her mind for the millionth time "I thought I could act better and control myself when I saw him, but if you noticed that I wanted to suffocate him with my own hands, that means I failed.  
Peter would have realized it too? Did you tell anyone? Had she already become a target?  
"Considering what you know, I think he controlled himself pretty well," he touched her face dragging his thumb of his right hand across her cheek, where a slow tear fell. Hermione didn't notice until then that he needed to share his pain with someone, someone who understood his suffering as Sirius seemed to. And of all the people, she never imagined that it would be Sirius Black who would comfort her in the middle of the dawn while she had shown them the terrible future where she came from, a miserable future for all of them. "I'll be godfather." she laughed and another tear ran down her cheek, Black's thumb caressing the place once again.  
"He's wonderful Sirius, my best friend ever." And then she felt her lip tremble and Sirius' arms pulled her towards him, forming a protective cocoon wrapped around her. And then she finally cried, as she hadn't done since the funeral of her friends, her fiancé, Molly who was like a mother to her. And Sirius comforted her, caressing her hair slowly, her chin leaning under the top of her head. "My dreamless potion" she murmured to him.  
He reached for her purse once more, doing his best not to get away from Hermione's warm body. The chestnut would never admit how grateful she felt for it, how good his body and smell so close to her, of his affection and the comforting sleep that came out of his lips and caused comfort to his tired body. She relaxed, even more, when she drank the blue potion that would not make her have nightmares and torment Sirius' sleep.  
"If you want you can sleep in your bed" she raised her head enough to look in her eyes.  
"That's a little bird invitation?" he made affection once again on her cheek.  
"Keep your hands off me and I'll keep your fingers in place," she pointed her index finger at him, bending her eyebrow in a threatening way. Sirius grabbed his finger and brought it towards her chest, approaching her until her eyes were at the same height.  
"I would never do anything I didn't want to" he assured with his eyes staring directly at the brown irises that Sirius wanted to dive every time he faced.  
"And this is mainly because our wands will be very well positioned under my pillow". Hermione deviated, especially because she suddenly felt the butterflies populating her stomach. She ignored the strange sensation.  
"Mostly huh?" Hermione rolled her eyes.  
"You know, you shouldn't flirt with your sponsee's future best friend."  
"And I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be here. So what's your point?" she didn't dare answer and they stared at each other for a while, sleepily beating her.  
"I expected more questions," she said, lying down, pulling her hand back to herself. Sirius did the same and the two stared at each other while lying down.  
"Not today, you're still tired. And well, I want to know everything tomorrow, every detail. I want that snake-faced son of a bitch to fall and all those who followed him too."  
"You dream tall child." She had a weak tap on her head and Sirius grabbed her fingers with her left hand, intertwining the two and gluing them in front of her.  
"If I were the only one who did that around here."  
"Good night, Sirius," she said, facing the stormy irises one last time.  
"Good night little bird."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I declare the beginning of a romantic relationship in this chapter.


	8. Severus Snape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione goes in search of the potions teacher.  
> Happy Halloween :)

Convincing Sirius Black to return to her old home was one of the most difficult things Hermione has ever done in her life. Remus and she had to prepare him for a week so that he simply wouldn't cast spells on his mother in case he met her accidentally at the occasion.  
"What makes you think that shrew will let me in?"  
"Why is Christmas coming?" Hermione tried and Sirius faced her with sarcasm "You only need to see Regulus actually, allowing him to contact us. You will basically be our bridge, our time is running out Sirius".  
"How can you know that?" said Remus analyzing his face for a moment "Merlin, are you a seer?  
Hermione couldn't hold the laughter that came out of his nose. There were few things in the witch world that made her turn her eyes and sigh exasperatedly as when the subject was divination. It was nonsense, the most complete nonsense. In her third year and all the omens that Trelawney made about Harry.  
If they were in a cartoon, a lamp would have risen over Hermione's head at that very moment.  
"The prophecy."  
The two men faced it without understanding.  
"Of course, of course. Merlin hadn't thought of that!" If she could get to the prophecy before Voldemort, there would be a good chance it would take him longer to locate James, Lily, Alice, and Frank.  
"Little bird, you're not talking about anything with anything," said Black staring at her more curiously than Remus, since he now knew all about the future where she came from.  
"It's nothing important, not now." she smiled at him "Each one of us has a mission today." She ran away from any explanation she could give them at the moment, everything would come in its proper time.  
She would need to plan carefully how she would invade the ministry, this time more cautiously than she did in her 15 years.  
"I'm going to see my dear family again," said Sirius with disgust as she fixed her leather jacket, which made him look much more like Hermione herself. It was hard to convince Sirius to go back to his old home, something haunted his gaze every time Hermione quoted the Black family and made him more defensive than ever. Sirius now had as many ghosts in her basement as she had known years before. Maybe that was the reason he understood her so well.  
"I'll spend the afternoon with Lily, to keep an eye on her," Remus said a little down, the full moon would be next Saturday, and Hermione noticed all the symptoms in the poor man. Without him knowing it, Hermione was preparing several strengthening potions that would help him recover after transformation.  
"And I will speak with Severus Snape." she finally revealed, the two men who were already heading for the door suddenly stopped and turned to her, Sirius' eyes almost leaping from their orbits, clearly tense and irritated with the information, since the muscles in his jaw were visibly snapping.  
"You're kidding me, right? You can't be cogitating going after Snevillus alone little bird". Black approached her, a warning in her eyes making very clear her motives, Black's possessive and protective hands reaching her fingers.  
"I have to go." She pigeoned pulling her hand, especially after the funny look Remus threw at the two of them and went towards the rack of the room to get her own coat "He's a double agent and I need someone close enough to you-know-who. Besides, he's the most skillful occlument I've ever met if he can help me improve my skills...".  
"Are you an occlument?" asked Remus quite surprised.  
"Where I came from, closing your mind was one of the most important things. Wars were lost by inappropriate disclosures of information. And I don't want anyone wrong wandering through my mind," she took a meaningful look at Sirius. But Black was stubborn to face her stubbornly, he didn't want her with Snape and that was a fact, his gaze screamed that.  
"You can't go alone." He held her hand for a second time, the grip was so firm that it hurt a little bit "I don't trust him. Not a bit."  
"I do." She looked at him, he knew Harry's memories, he saw what she saw. Snape took care of Harry for all those years despite a hangman who was with the three of them most of the time.  
"You didn't know him at school." He squeezed his fingers even tighter and the two of them stared in the eyes stubbornly for a while. Gryffindors from hell they were!  
And then to end the childish argument, Remus pigeoned by taking Hermione out of his stubborn stupor with Sirius' ash irises.  
"Anyway, I'm not asking your permission. We all have a goal and mine is to recruit Snape for this strange trio we ended up forming".  
"Okay, but tomorrow you're summoned to accompany me to a place."  
"What do you intend Sirius Black?" she raised her eyebrows staring at the still boring eyes of Gryffindor.  
"Surprise, little bird."  
And as suspicious as she was, she couldn't go on with it, because she was already late for her mission "Ok, see you at the order meeting tonight and remember, without divulging any information that we discussed in this room".  
"I don't know why we're among friends," said Remus a little upset and Hermione felt Sirius' back tensing. She twisted internally to keep him quiet, and fortunately, that's what she did.  
Leaving through the door, she apparated for Diagon Alley's most famous potion store. Hermione knew that Snape would work there for about three years until he finally became master of potions at Hogwarts. When entering the store the little bell on the door resounded and then only Hermione's steps were heard. The store was light brown and there were shelves and more shelves everywhere, composed of flasks of various colors, plant roots, strange parts of animals, and even wings of some creatures.  
"What are you doing here?" the bored and suspicious voice came from behind her while the brown one stared at what seemed to be a pot full of little eyes, she wondered to which creature or animal they would one day belong.  
"It is also a pleasure to see you again, Snape. This is still a potion store, isn't it?" said Hermione extending to him a list of ingredients she needed some potions and ingredients she was missing. Especially the potion she was developing for Remus, so he could have consciousness during his transformation. She would have to start as soon as the full moon arrived so that Lupin would start taking his potion the next day.  
"Ibisco?" he said by passing his eyes through the list "Only one kind of person I know buys Ibisco" he analyzed her thoroughly, looking at every part of her exposed skin. Which was not much, since she was wearing pants, boots, and a jacket. He certainly concluded that she would be a werewolf since she came out of nowhere and very interested in the cause of the order.  
"And that wouldn't be a problem, would it?" Hermione passed by him, her body almost leaning against his shoulder "I knew you had problems with that." She looked over her shoulder at him "I knew you had a lot of problems with almost everything we fought for.  
"That's none of your business." He closed the list and went behind the counter, squatting and grabbing small pots that probably contained the ingredients on the list. It was incredibly satisfying how he knew the exact locations of the ingredients. "I hope you know this was expensive."  
"I know, that's why I came prepared." She took out of her extendable jacket pocket a number of gold coins. Harry always made it clear that in case something happened to him, he would like her to keep her fortune, and given the latest events, she did. "Surprised? It must be very shocking that a born muggle witch has so much money, isn't it?"  
He just looked at her in silence, turning to look at the man behind the shelves. Hermione came to the conclusion that this was the old owner of the store, well known for his exact and deadly potions.  
"One ingredient is missing," Hermione said, putting his hands on the counter and leaning back.  
"No, this potion is complete." He checked the ingredients on the counter and opened his mouth to speak again when Hermione interrupted him.  
"Read the back of the list, please." He frowned behind his greasy, full hair, turning the leaf and running his eyes over the secret words that Dumbledore confided to her, said it was a method to be able to talk to him during the war.  
"Chard root, then." He returned the list to her fingers slowly and then took the bottle for her. With a wave of a wand, Hermione levitated.  
"Diamond," Hermione said coming out of the store. That was the name of his newly bought black owl, who would take the address to Snape still that day.  
He appeared around eight, Hermione had just had dinner and was working on Lupin's potion. A little sweaty and crumpled by the heat and effort of stirring the cauldron, the brunette just opened the door and returned to her potion, completely ignoring the good manners of a hostess.  
"You know, stir it vigorously and non-stop for more than two minutes," she said running back to the cauldron.  
She heard the door being closed and locked, his low voice probably silencing the room and protecting them if there was an invasion.  
"Who told you about chard root?" he asked her staring with his black eyes.  
"Who else? Dumbledore." She stretched out her hand to pick up the green dust and sprinkled over the solution.  
"Mundblood." he said suddenly and she raised her head almost knocking the bottle inside the boiling potion, that's when she realized he was looking at something on her exposed wrist since the sleeve of her blouse had been pulled up to her elbows "Cursed Blade?  
"Yes," she said without grace. Suddenly very conscious of the throbbing scar, but avoiding to pull the sleeve down as she always did. What else could she do? He already saw.  
"I only know one person in London who has one of these," right, she didn't expect.  
"Really? Of all London, you only know one? I thought you were from the inner circle of you-know-who" and there they would go again. She reached for her wand and couldn't help but smile on her lips when she saw that he quickly reached for her wand in his pocket. She waved for the spoon to keep moving in the cauldron "You know, stir for twenty-four hours.  
And then she levitated the pensieve there, the mist floating in the waters just as it was the day she revealed herself to Sirius.  
"Too many people already know this, but I know you would never believe it if I didn't show it" she signaled to the pensieve and the future teacher just stared at her "I don't need to explain to you what a pensieve is, or do I need to?" he gave her a dull look and tightened the wand "I don't know for sure your reasons for getting involved with the darkness, maybe your bond with Slytherin or your family? But I know why you don't want to get involved with Vol... you-know-who." she corrected herself when he fulminated her with his eyes, Hermione lifted the wand and revealed his wrist, the black mark had already been made. She knew this because Regulus also received his from Snape a month ago. And she knew this because Sirius told her everything she needed to know about Regulus Black. "Lily."  
"Don't talk about what you don't know." Snape lifted his wand and approached her. "Lilian Potter means nothing to me, except a born muggle I have offended."  
"If you look at the pensieve you will know why I don't believe in even one letter of it" she pointed with her arm at the waters again and after what seemed like long embarrassing minutes, Snape walked up to her and bent down. As Hermione saw the signs of her body to the events there, she wondered what this could cause in the war. Would showing Snape the future be enough to avoid Lily's death? Would it prevent Harry's birth? She didn't doubt that he could interfere, not even for a moment, and then she turned to the calendar. They were in the middle of December, the probability that Harry had already been conceived was very great.  
"I knew there was something wrong with you." Snape scared her and Hermione turned, if he had any reaction like Sirius, she should be prepared, mainly because there was a good chance that she would be the target this time "You were thrilled that day, especially when you saw Potter... And you had occlusion."  
"It's not so unusual to be occlusion in times like these, really." She lowered her wand when she noticed the calmness of the potion master. "But I must still improve, and I would like your help in this.  
He stared at her in silence.  
"You're good enough, I only know one person as good as you.  
"I do." "You." they said together.  
"Did I teach you?"  
"No, you taught Harry." She smiled sadly at the memory of her friend, "He hated you and you were a terrible occlusion master to speak the truth, as you may have noticed, you-know-who had free access to his mind. But I don't want him to have mine. "She waved the wand to the teapot, making him warm and two cups came towards him. "I learned from Dumbledore, the one on the board while doing my time research.  
"This is a suicide mission."  
"There's a great possibility of that." She took her cup of tea and offered the other one to him who denied "I have whiskey, we can put it in the tea if you want, I'm just not a big fan of pure taste."  
"I don't want to drink it." he said coldly "I want to know what you want me to interfere in, you haven't shown me all this for nothing.  
"You'll have to be my eyes and ears, and you'll have to be my confidant. Only mine."  
"That excludes..."  
"Dumbledore." she added, "It's not that I don't trust him, I just don't... I think he should know everything because I also don't think you told him all the details." she looked at him from behind the cup as she took a long sip.  
"No, I didn't." He sighed, "How do you think I won't tell anyone anything? You made an unbreakable vow with Black." Of course, she had added some memories there to save her precious time.  
"You spent long years keeping terrible secrets, Snape, I think mine is the least. However" she put the cup on the bench and leaned with her elbows on it "If you decide to hang to the other side and reveal everything you know now, we will surely all be dead by dawn. I'll be the undesirable number 1 before they can even pronounce my name and the ministry will fall quickly, the whole order, including Dumbledore, no matter how much Riddle shows his fear of him".  
"You're right." He said to her staring in the eyes "You have hope in me. You know how stupid that is, don't you?"  
"I do." she sighed, "But where I came from there weren't anymore, you know, parents with no memory, dead best friends, my fiancé, and half his dead family, a world still full of injustice. Coming back was the last hope, it was this or simply to have survived so long to die of sadness" she stared at the counter for a moment, the pain returning in her chest with full force, the throat tight and the tears overflowing, she was alone there and there was no sense. No sense at all. "I needed to come back. - Her voice failed in some notes and she pigeoned to firm, drying the tears from the probably pink cheeks "If you want to betray me and spread this information, go ahead, but I will fight until the end. I have nothing to lose".  
The master in potions remained silent for a long time while Hermione tried to calm down, it wasn't good that he had an attack every time he thought about the life he had.  
"You are the smartest witch of your time" he stretched out his hand to her, and Hermione just stared at her with curiosity "I wouldn't be an idiot not to participate in this, you are the only one able here to prevent everything you showed me from happening and from what I noticed you prepared for it".  
"Not so much, some things got out of my control, like Remus and Sirius... But I think we can still follow the original plan" she held his hand firmly "If you betray me, know that I won't think twice.  
"I know." He returned the strong grip "That's why I know you're the right person... Just do what you can to save Lilian, it's the only thing I ask in return".  
"I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sirimione interaction in the next chapter, I promise.


	9. Every Breath You Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Sirius have a magical night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the favorites, my heart was warm!  
> Today Sirimione finally interacted! But also the beginning of a paradox of our dear heroine. 
> 
> ps: Although Every Breath You Take was released in 1983, let's pretend it was before, ok? I thought I had arranged it with their moment.  
> I hope they enjoy it as much as I did writing it. :)

Hermione wondered how she had let herself be so easily manipulated by that petulant Black. But it turns out she was.  
The next morning Severus Snape's visit, an owl pecked tirelessly at her window until she finally got her ass out of the warm and comfortable bed so that she would welcome her and offer some birdseed and water. The owl was curiously similar to its owner. The feathers were as dark as Sirius' hair, the eyes as gray as the sky during a storm, the aristocratic, stubborn and needy profile also resembled a lot, especially after the owl pecked her about four times until finally, Hermione stroked her feathers.  
While Hermione pulled Sirius' note out of the all-black envelope, Diamond and Sirius' owl stared at each other without blinking, as she and Black himself had done endless times before. The note said that Hermione owed her a very big favor (and it was huge since he crossed out the word three times) since Sirius allowed her to go alone to find Snevillus, and therefore, she would have to be presentable and sexy by seven o'clock at night. And well, if she wasn't ready, he would take her even in bunny clothes.  
His words, not hers. Even if at that exact moment her pajamas were bunny.  
So she got ready.  
She wore a black dress with long sleeves that went down to her knees, high pipe boots, and tame her hair enough not to look like she had just left the eye of a hurricane. She went down the stairs of the building strategically located in front of Burkin & Burker and waited halfway, analyzing the street practically uninhabited at that moment. Then a discreet snore broke the silence and Hermione looked both sides of the street, not avoiding taking her hand towards her wand safely positioned in the boot. The snoring then turned into thunder and a lighthouse lit up the field above Hermione as if they had placed a huge reflector in the sky.  
She laughed with herself. How can you forget that Sirius Black had a motorcycle?  
It was his face to have something like that. And it was fantastic, just like she remembered it was the last and only time she saw him. When they went to remove Harry from the Dursley house. The huge and noisy motorcycle stopped in front of Hermione's body in the middle of the wire, she couldn't avoid looking everywhere, noticing that some witches went out their windows to observe what that noise was. Three people frowned in a disgusting face and three others looked at the man in front of her haunted.

"Wasn't there a better way to get more attention, Sirius Black?" she suddenly bowed her head in shame.   
He removed his helmet from the same tone as her hair and offered her a bright and sexy smile that ascended strange things in Hermione's womb.  
"Come on, they're sure to want one of these now." He patted the motorcycle before he got off. "Something tells me you already knew about this little beauty," he stopped suddenly, something shining in his eyes. Tell me you've walked on her before..."  
"Me? Walk on this potential killer?"  
"Hey! Don't talk about Ruby like that, she's a great 1959 Triumph Bonneville T120, okay?"  
"Ruby? Did you give her a name? Why should there always be a woman's name involved?"  
"Because women are the most extraordinary creatures in the whole world." The way he said it looking at her... God, it's hot.  
Shaking her head, Hermione observed the motorcycle in search of diverting the subject from herself.  
"Last time there was an appendix here, for the passenger to sit down." She pointed to the empty place, the place where Harry sat when they left the Dursley house for the last time. When they lost Moody and George lost his ear.  
"Well, there's an appendix, but to make it look more detached I took it out today."   
"Wouldn't it be more detached if you used a classic motorcycle?"  
"Oh no..." he passed behind her body, taking his hands gently to her waist and approaching his mouth to her right ear "I think everyone would agree that it would be much more detached to arrive with a hot cat holding my waist..." his fingers slightly tightened the chestnut's hip. And she didn't stop the sigh that left her lips. Merlin. She sighed. She sighed for Sirius Black.   
"Wh-Where are we going?" she moved away suddenly, not completely ignoring the hoarse laugh that the Black released with the quick and exaggerated reaction she had to his touch.  
"Surprise, little bird." He removed another black helmet from inside the motorcycle compartment and carefully put on her head, the fingertips touching her chin while Hermione closely analyzed the older Black's face. Circe, going out with him would go very wrong. But even so, she would.  
Hermione had lost her mind?  
"Wait, you're forgetting a little something..." Hermione said looking into his eyes.  
"What?" he looked up at her.   
"I hate flying."  
"You flew on a dragon."  
"Yes, but it was a matter of life and death."  
"This is a matter of life and death." He said exaggeratedly, "From my death if I don't have you with me on this bike, my ego will probably be more than hurt..."  
"Have you been told how dramatic you are?"  
"Sometimes." He laughed and leaned back on the bike, crossing his feet. Hermione finally observed him: a black leather jacket that hid the white shirt inside, beaten jeans, and a boot that mounted a very sexy and muggle look for a witch like him. Hermione was sure that if her mother could see this, Walburga will have a heart attack. Sirius was a Hermione muggle rock star who tried to pretend it didn't affect her.   
"I don't know Sirius..." she said, remembering the dread she had when she was several feet off the ground.  
"I'll be with you the whole time." He held out his hand to her.  
"That doesn't reassure me one bit, Black." She crossed her arms and stared at him.  
"You don't have much choice, either you go up here or I put you, as I promised, compulsorily, in the note I sent you earlier."  
Hermione faced him for several seconds before accepting his hand.  
"But first you must put this on. He took off his jacket and went behind her back.  
"I'm not cold..."  
"It's pretty cold up there." He answered by putting her arms up to her sleeves.  
"But you..."  
"I'll be fine." He answered by patting her helmet before getting on the bike again.  
The jacket was hot from his heat, smells like eucalyptus, and light cigarette smoke. The sleeves went over her hands, so she had to pull them until she revealed her fingertips again.   
"Sirius, I can go up and get a jacket." She said and he denied it with his vehement head.  
"No way! I never thought you could look prettier, but now I know I was completely wrong.  
With her cheeks burning and her body aware of the look Sirius gave her, she was quick to get on the bike behind him, without touching him, fixing her hands firmly on the sides of the bike.  
"Are you sure you don't want to hold on to me?" he said, turning on the motorcycle, the engine snore alerting anyone who had ears that the two of them were there and that it was a bundle object. 

"Absolutely," Hermione answered. Unfortunately, she managed to keep her decision of not touching him until the first three meters that were on firm ground, when the motorcycle started to leave the ground and Hermione saw the wheels turning in the air until it stopped and a bump trying to throw out of the vehicle, her hands quickly found the abdomen hard and full of squares. She swallowed the cursing they wanted to leave her lips when she heard Sirius laugh. And everything got worse when they climbed almost as close to the clouds as it was necessary, Sirius swearing together that she had cast a deluding spell to avoid being seen by bundles. But she didn't care about anything, only that she was trembling, clinging to Sirius, with her face stuck in her back and her eyes very closed, since she had no idea what she would be capable of if she opened them so far from the ground.  
"Oh damn! My dress is going up..." she said more to herself, and in a failed attempt to contain it with one hand, almost unbalanced herself from the bike, squeezing Sirius' hard muscles more tightly and letting out a little shout without bellows.   
"I can solve this for you." Abandoning one hand of the bike's handlebars, Sirius took her back, slowly, sliding her fingers through the soft skin of Hermione's calf which was close to her thighs. Her fingers rose slowly, making a delicious way through the milky, velvety skin, causing shivers from which Hermione forced herself to believe they were due to her fear of height. Hermione's closed eyes only intensified how conscious she was of the incredibly delicious sensation of the male hand rising so high on her thigh, holding the bar of her dress firmly.  
Unfortunately, she couldn't control the contractions of her pelvic muscles either, the painful squeezing of her thighs on each other to relieve the tension, how wet the place was. Oh shit, the night hadn't even started right.   
"Shouldn't you be with both hands driving this motorcycle drug?" she said low so she wondered if he had heard. But Sirius listened, he always heard her after all.  
"You'd be surprised what I can do with just one hand." He answered by squeezing his fingers slightly over the tip of the dress and his thigh. Hermione swallowed dry and pressed his forehead even tighter against Black's back.   
She couldn't measure how long they stayed in the air, but she could measure how delicious his smell was, the sensation of his hand on her thigh, sometimes squeezing, sometimes caressing "innocently", how good it was to feel the warmth of his body under the fingers that were in front of his abdomen, how good it was to hear his heart beating against his ribs. Sirius made her forget that she was in the air, meters, and meters from the ground. She only noticed that they were no longer flying when he removed his hand from her leg and a bump indicated that they were on the ground again. The snoring of the bike lasted a few more seconds until it stopped.  
"We arrived little bird, I know you liked to hug me, but you can do it out anyway. Despite the playful way, Hermione can't ignore how low Black's voice came out. And she would never admit that she identified that tone very well. Desire.  
Hermione got off the bike slowly, using Sirius' shoulders as support, he was watching her carefully. Staring at his brown eyes. Seeming to think of something, seems to mean something, but that, that strange magic floating between them did not allow him to say. A snoring bike scared Hermione and she turned to the side, where a bearded man accompanied by a woman, with the style as rocky as he was, came down from a bike, not unlike them.  
"You brought me to a biker bar, Mr. Black?" she laughed when she looked at the place where the two entered.

"Unlike my parents, I've always liked sucky things." Sirius' fingers loosened the buckles of his helmet and then he took off Hermione's too. "I've been going to The Stranger for a long time, it's a great bar, there's good drinking, good music, interesting people, and a lot of fries that will probably fatten me up". He put one of his hands at the base of his back and guided her towards the bar.  
"Do you think they will let me in? I'm not dressed like a Sirius motorcyclist".  
"It's not, but it's hot as hell, little bird..." that low tone again... Oh Merlin.   
She can't think much, especially when Sirius greeted the bad security guard outside the bar. The place was relatively well lit and the walls were brick, there was a smell of beer and other kinds of drink loose in the air. And not in a bad way. There was also a lot of smoke and cigarettes everywhere, as well as leather jackets, jeans, metals, and lamps that indicated some brand of beer.  
"I forgot to return your jacket..." Hermione took his hands to remove the piece, but Black held it by the shoulders.  
"No, little bird. Keep it." He smiled and his eyes went all over Hermione, his eyes darkening two tones, his throat swallowing dry... God, she was going crazy, wasn't she?  
"Wow, I'm in an eighties bar and it's... like in the movies." Hermione laughed, deviating from the subject and his hands on her "Actually, I think this is my first time in a bar. You know, saving the world until you come of age doesn't leave you much time to enjoy your life".  
"Okay, then let me buy you a drink, rookie!" he said excitedly.  
"Sirius, I've had a drink, I just haven't been to bars. And I don't think I'd even go to them on my good days."  
"Oh, but you'll like that little bird, go for me!" he laughed and asked her to wait while he walked to the bar. The place was quite characteristic, the smell was not as bad as she imagined and people seemed to be having fun, in the back of the bar there was a pool table where four people played, on mixed walls of women and men. Packed by curiosity, Granger approached watching the game, which was accompanied by a soundtrack of a rock band playing on the jukebox. The blonde woman and fat man were winning the game, and the other two younger ones seemed disappointed and would probably lose a good amount of money.  
"I brought your beer, little bird" Sirius appeared with a glass mug next to her, filled with yellowish liquid, bringing his own on the other hand, a little empty since he had probably sipped.   
"They play very well. Hermione commented watching the blonde woman hit the green ball directly with the white one.  
"Louis and Jannet are the best pool players in this bar, I've lost a lot of money to them," Hermione looked at him laughingly.  
"Do you play pool?

"Not you?" Hermione laughed even more sipping the beer and seeing that the taste wasn't so bad. But she still preferred butterbeer. They watched the duo lose to Louis and Jannet and the next one enters the parade, they even went well, but they weren't enough.  
As the night progressed, Hermione and Sirius drank more hop mugs and had fun like Hermione hadn't done in a long time. Rock was their soundtrack and Hermione felt happy.  
"It's weird, I know all the lyrics to those songs. My parents were frequenters of the same bars as you..." She confided in Sirius, seeing the blond couple win the bet once again.  
"They're great songs, it only gets better with time?" Sirius asked curiously.  
"Relatively, but I'm not very attached to musical updates," she shrugged as she watched the loser couple deliver a fifty-pound note to Louis and Jannet. "Our turn." She said one step ahead.  
"What?" Sirius stared at her without understanding "Do you want to play?"  
"What? Surprised?" she laughed as she reached the cue abandoned by the new losers "Hello Jannet and Louis, I'm Hermione and this is my friend Sirius" she pointed to the brunette who was following her still not understanding very well that they would play pool together "We want to bet".  
"The minimum is fifty pounds." Jannet informed her, leaning back on her probable boyfriend.   
"I bet a hundred." Sirius choked and Hermione barely suppressed his laughter.  
"Bet, little girl." Said the older woman shaking the nut's hand. "Fledglings go first."   
"Sure." She turned to Sirius, "You start."  
"Why me?" he asked her, just now picking up a bat for himself.  
"I want to see you play." He simply said and held his chin in his hands above the bat. Sirius looked at her for a few seconds and then positioned himself. He crouched down and took a good shot, hitting the cue ball hard and spreading all the others around the table, he pocketed two smooth balls and a striped one.   
"Smooth then." Louis said with his thick voice. Sirius ended up missing the next shot and passing the turn to the old Louis who laughed with mockery at the already known challenger.   
"Hermione, I hope you know what you're doing." Sirius said low next to her "I'm a witch, after all, they play here every week." He explained, "And I don't have a hundred dollars."   
Louis let out an impropriety when he missed his shot, passing the turn back to them.  
"So we'd better win because I don't have it either." She whispered to the Black throwing a little wink at him before moving on to her shot.  
_**Every Breath you take**_  
"You're crazy." He gestured to her, making her laugh.  
_**Every move you make**_  
She felt the eyes of Sirius, Jannet, and Louis on her. Hermione bent over, fully aware of Sirius' gaze on her in such a... suggestive position.   
**_Every bond you break_**  
And then he fixed his gaze on the cue ball, finding the perfect angle to hit and when he did, two balls flew to opposite sides of the table, hitting the pocket with a sudden and harmonic noise.  
Hermione smiled, not so much for hitting, but for the reaction of the three with his skill. Sirius' mouth was so open that a swarm of flies could enter her at that very moment.  
_**Every step you take**_  
Before going to the next shot, she went to Sirius and put her finger on her chin, lifting it to the point of joining her lips to each other.  
"Surprised, Black?" she laughed at the wide-eyed man, then returned to the table and made a great performance of consecutive strokes until she missed the last one.   
"When were you going to tell me that you were the goddess of the pool, Miss Granger?" Sirius said in her ear, her lips tickled tasty on her lobe.  
"Wasn't it on your face? I must improve my fame at the pool..." she laughed "My father had a table, I spent most of my life competing pool with the best player in town. Despite the melancholy of never seeing his parents again, that was a very good memory.  
"It was the sexiest thing I've ever seen in my life." He said low in his ear again, that tone of earlier. I wish. Wish. Wish.  
_**I'll be watching you**_  
Hermione erred in his last bowl and Jannet took over, covering one after the other. But she made a mistake on her last one too and it was all in Sirius' hands.   
_**Every single day**_  
Hermione would always remember that moment. It was like the final of a quidditch championship in her head and the background she played one of her favorite songs: Every Breath you Take from The police.  
"Little bird, I don't think I'll make it..." he said nervously leaning over the table and aiming the bat "We're going to have to run from here" he gestured with his lips.  
_**Every word you say**_  
"Very calm..." she approached him stopping behind and holding his hand with hers, helping him to aim, feeling his tense muscles, feeling the weight of his gray look analyzing her face "Ready? I trust you, Black". She kissed his cheek before walking away.  
_**Every game you play**_

Sirius seemed surprised and a smile dominated his lips, then he turned his gaze to the green table, the spectators who gathered during the match were all crowded around him. And then the bat hit the white ball and she pushed the black one directly into the pocket of the right tale. In the exact seconds, The Police shouted that he would always watch his inspiring muse.  
**_Every night you stay_**  
**_I'll be watching you_**  
It was strange, because at that moment Sirius faced her, amazed, admired and surprised with their victory. Without waiting for anything else he ran to her and hugged her lifting her from the ground and spinning there, in the middle of the bar, in front of all those people, like a fool, drawing attention from God and everyone. Hermione couldn't hold the laughter and the surprised scream he let out.   
_**Oh, can't you see?**_  
"We won little bird, we won" he let go happy while spinning it non-stop. When he finally put her down, she was a little dizzy, they moved away from a little and staring into his eyes, he approached her, his lips rubbed lightly, but one move and they would kiss. She saw everything inside his irises at that exact moment and suddenly she felt afraid. Very afraid. Circe, what the fuck was she doing?  
_**You belong to me**_  
"Sorry Sirius..." she walked away, but not in time to avoid it.  
Sirius pulled her into her arms, straight to her lips. And it was glorious.  
**_How my poor heart aches_**  
**_With every step you take_**  
His taste was divine, something lost between the freshness of the mint and the taste of the beer they just drank, his hands... Circe, his hands were there on her, on her waist pulling her towards him, melting her into him and it was... delicious! She reciprocated with the same veracity, ignoring that everyone was looking because the connection they had offered the ability to seem that nothing else mattered but that there? That kiss. Those touches of him... As if I could never kiss him again. She only let him go when they were both avid for air. Panting. Excited. Confused.  
"Little bird, that was..." he touched her chin with his hand, caressing her soft skin with his big fingertips.  
Hermione shook her head in disagreement trying to take away the feeling her body had in his arms. That was wrong. She was Ron's. She would always be Ron's. Then why the fuck did she feel like she belonged to Sirius? That it was Sirius?  
**_Since you've gone_**  
**_I've been lost without a trace_**  
She was drunk. That was the answer.  
She put her small hands on his chest and pushed him away.  
"That was a mistake. A huge mistake." She repeated, staring scared at the gray irises. She walked away from him and ran to the door, hearing his name being called by the man she had just kissed.  
_**I feel so cold**_  
_**And I long for you clutch**_  
_**I keep crying baby**_  
_**Baby, please.**_  
And it was so ironic that at that moment the police would sing that she belonged to him.  
And that he would be Sirius Black. And not Ronald Weasley.


	10. Regulus Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Regulus finally get in contact.

Hermione hasn't seen Sirius since the night of the bar. Or better since the night they kissed.  
Not that he didn't try to get in touch with her or knock on her door tirelessly that same dawn until finally understanding that she wouldn't open for him. Hermione just got shrunk in her bed listening to Sirius calling her a little bird, apologizing millions of times even though she didn't regret what she did. That damned kiss ascended things in him he had never imagined. And then she heard his footsteps moving away and decided to push all day to the darkest corner of his mind trying to forget.  
It's obvious that she didn't forget despite having avoided him for a long and lonely week. Although he sent a letter to her every day, he didn't appear at her door anymore. And only when he finally sent news about how was his visit to his mother's house, it was that Hermione decided it was time to meet him again. Briefly, Walburga Black wasn't there when he entered, and despite Kreacher's incessant threats, the older Black managed to talk to his brother.  
Thus, Regulus Black knew the truth about a week later. As Sirius made an unbreakable vow with her, he couldn't reveal everything he knew, so his mission was basically to bring Regulus to Hermione. He had to be fast enough because the end of 1979 was a few days away. And that meant that if Regulus didn't show up soon, he would disappear, indicating that his death had happened. But he appeared, at his door at Diagon Alley, transfigured into a tall, blond young man accompanied by a Sirius Black who faced her apprehensive. Maybe as tormented by the scene of the kiss as she was still.  
When they entered her apartment, Regulus returned to his original form, and Hermione almost laughed with his resemblance between the two brothers. Regulus also had stormy eyes, his hair as black as Sirius', however, he was taller and thinner, as well as seemed more contained and obscure too, this explained much of why Sirius ended up not going to Sonserina. And then he saw her memories and asked her a thousand questions.  
"How many horcrux's are there where you came from?"  
"7. "she answered by levitating a bottle of Bourbon, she was possibly turning into an alcoholic, but that kind of situation asked for alcohol in her system "Tom Riddle's diary, which he created with the death of Murta Warren, as soon as he released the basilisk in the chamber of secrets, currently in the domain of Lucius Malfoy. Hermione was making slow movements in the air, making a scheme of names and horcrux's that intertwined "And then there is Servolo Gaunt's ring that belonged to Tom Riddle's grandfather, he stole from his uncle Morfino Gaunt and then killed his biological father and his family muggle so he could share his soul. This horcrux is hidden in the cabin of Gaunt and it was Dumbledore who found and destroyed it. The Slytherin medallion that belonged to Merope Gaunt, Tom's mother, she sold it at the store across the street a long time ago." she made a quick move towards it, and Regulus took the medallion out of his pocket "You intended to exchange this real medallion for a fake one, didn't you?"  
Regulus faced her a little surprised, although she just revealed where it came from.  
"You can't even imagine the work you gave us." she sighed taking a sip of the drink "Tom took the medallion back from Hepzibah Smith, and along with it also took the next horcrux, the cup from Hufflepuff which is in the domain of her dear cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, confined to her account at Gringotts".  
Both Sirius and Regulus shrank briefly, Bellatrix was crazy indeed, whether in time. And Hermione believed that it only got worse for Sirius once he knows that she was his killer from then on for several years.  
"The next was the diadem of Rowenna Ravenclaw, that wanted for years on end. It is said that he would increase the intelligence of anyone who took them. And so that he wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, Rowenna's daughter Hellena hid him very well in a forest in Albania, but the gray lady entrusted the location to Tom". Hermione finished taking the Bourbon glass with a face "Riddle then returned to Hogwarts after the creation of horcrux and hid in the room of lost things, she was destroyed with cursed fire, but as the stupid Goyle didn't know how to control it, he died" she cast a significant look at Sirius and he swallowed dry "And then there's Nagini, she was created after the fall of Voldemort. You must know what a Maledictus is, right?"  
"A woman who is the target of a blood curse that gives her the ability to transform into any creature she wants," said Sirius.  
"And at some point in life, she becomes that creature permanently," Regulus completed.  
"Nagini, a maledictus, became one of Voldemort's greatest allies after becoming permanently snake-shaped. Tom initially used his poison for a potion that would keep him alive. This horcrux was also created in Albania, when Pettigrew met Berta Jonkis and took her to you-know-who. - Sirius suddenly took the bottle from the table and took a long sip, breathing heavy and trying to control herself, she hadn't given him so many details last time. "And then last, there's James and Lily's son, Harry" she smiled sadly "He was Voldemort's last horcrux and it was totally accidental. There will be a prophecy, soon, in which he will say that the only one able to defeat the lord of darkness would arrive at the end of August. The lord will distrust the Potter and the Longbottoms. But it will be Harry, and then, after a betrayal, Voldemort will manage to kill James and Lily and then he will accidentally create a horcrux in Harry... He will be the only person who survived a avada kedavra in my time." The air became heavy and dense, Hermione looked at Sirius and the bottle was empty, he squeezed his wand with his thoughts concentrated on something. Hermione went in his direction, stretching his hand to the older Black, bowing an eyebrow in warning, he retreated for a few seconds before snorting and in a disgruntled way put his wand in her hands. As he turned around he saw Regulus analyzing the interaction of the two.  
"What do you intend to do? Who else is involved?" he asked, looking directly into her eyes.  
"Stop trying to read my Regulus Black mind." she warned "I could drink a bottle of this whole one and you wouldn't be able to invade my mind, I trained hard," she warned by throwing the bottle of booze in the trash and taking the glasses manually to the small sink of her apartment, before answering took a good look across the street. Nobody at Burkes, in the last few days things had shown calm. Christmas spirit maybe?  
"The only ones who know the whole story are you two." Sirius gave her a suspicious look and she didn't even bother to signal the bluff, she thought it best not to reveal that Snape was an infiltrator "And of course, there's Remus, but he only knows about the existence of the horcrux's and that I'm in charge of destroying them. However, I don't intend to tell him, Remus already has too many problems".  
"Right." he said with a sigh "What shall we do first?"  
"You'll have to take advantage of the festivities at the end of the year to surprise Tom Riddle's diary."  
"How do you expect me to do that?"  
"Malfoy Mansion, library, Lucius is dumb enough to have kept it on the shelves or maybe in the first drawer of the desk. Spells not very strong protection, he doesn't know that that is a horcrux, only that you-know-how wants that very safe. Don't use accio, it would only work for inanimate objects".  
"And there's a human piece in them, I get it," he completed for her "And while I'm taking my chances, what exactly will you do?"  
"What do you say we pay a little visit to the Gaunt cabin, Sirius?"


	11. The Gaunt Shack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Sirius go in search of the first horcrux.  
> Action! Action! Action!

Christmas Eve.   
Hermione felt nostalgic for a moment, remembering that when she was younger, she would probably be with her friends or her parents, buying last-minute gifts and organizing what they would eat at dinner. However, it wasn't at all what she was doing.   
"Wow, can you feel it?" said Sirius when they had just finished their apparel somewhere in that godforsaken forest.  
"The aura of black magic radiating everywhere? Yes." They started walking side by side, Sirius' fingers almost touching their own. Although they met a lot in the last week, their strange bonding was never the ideal topic of conversation.  
Sirius suddenly stopped.  
"What was it?" she squeezed her wand to the side of her body firmly.  
"I think we'd better do an area recon first."  
"There's no one here." Hermione assured, at least, in a reality where she came from there was never anyone here.  
"Like auror, I'm responsible for you." She faced him with debauchery and he vehemently ignored her. "I see myself in the obligation to do area reconnaissance."  
"This is ridiculous Sirius, but if it makes you sleep better at night feel at ease," she pointed to where possibly Gaunt's hut was, but which wisely was hidden behind protective and illusory spells. "Do you know how to break down protective barriers?"  
"Bitch please, I'm the best in my little bird class, of course I know. But that won't be necessary for now." He removed his long black cape, depositing it on the snow-covered ground. Then he passed to his shirt, and then to his shoes, Hermione caught himself facing the admirable physicist of the older Black, the hard and wide chest, the protruding little squares of his belly and his hand that went towards the zipper and opened his pants, the region in "V" leading to ... "Do you want to take a picture?"  
Hermione turned quickly, feeling his hot cheeks mainly because of the low laughter on his back.  
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, trying to sound annoyed, but looked more like a little girl who was caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  
"Don't play dumb, little bird. I'm an animagus and you know it," she heard the sound of the razor-sharp pants as he lowered her legs.   
"Right, but in my day you wouldn't take your clothes off."  
"Did I learn how to do it then? I always told James I could do it." Hermione heard the laughter in his voice. "The Sirius of now can't, unfortunately. However, I promise I'll perfect myself so as not to shock you so much. Although from the warmth I saw in your eyes, you liked my kind of transformation better".  
Hermione turned agape to him ready to retaliate against his comment, but what he found was just a huge black dog that surrounded his legs once or twice before he stuck his cold snout in the palm of his hand in search of affection.  
"You are very abused, Sirius Black." she stroked the hairs on his head and he shook his happy ass, releasing from Hermione a high "Bobo" laugh.   
Suddenly her ears rose and the animagus growled, remembering his mission he abandoned her and disappeared through the trees running like a real wolf. Hermione waited apprehensively as time passed painfully slowly.  
Very low noise of paws in the snow indicated his arrival a few minutes later, Sirius simply becoming human again before her eyes.  
"You're really trying to get me used to you naked, aren't you?" Hermione sighed giving her back to the naked figure and hearing her husky laugh.

"I'm beautiful, little bird. And what is beautiful, is to be shown" she heard his sounds rescuing her clothes "And yes, I hope he gets used to it so that we can take a bath together.  
She turned furious at him, at least he had already put on his pants.  
"What's it like?" Hermione turned astonished at Black.  
"I just said bathe, what did you think naughty?" he maliciously bowed his eyebrow and put on his shoes. "Nothing there, as you said, but the protective spells are strong."  
"Right." Hermione walked towards the hut whispering spells that would reveal her and that would be capable enough to break down the barriers. A few minutes later, Sirius joined her and they began to whisper spells and vital energy fading.   
And then she appeared. The old Gaunt hut.   
"It didn't look so ugly when I came from animagus," he commented, looking at the black and rotten woods, as they stepped on the first step of the ladder, the wood creaked bizarrely.  
"Do you think there's something inside?"  
"The last time I visited a house, under those circumstances, an old woman turned into a snake and almost killed me," she said, remembering the episode in Godric's Hollow. Sirius passed in front of her and Hermione, just after turning her eyes dramatically, was forced to stop him "That doesn't mean there's anything inside if you ask me, Dumbledore didn't find any trouble last time".  
Hermione opened the door and the creaking made his bones tremble, the house was dark and cold, the black magic leaving the air dense and breathing difficult. That place certainly was not a good place.  
"Lumus" whispered and the light of his wand lit up the room before them. Spider's webs were scattered everywhere, the smell of mold hovered over the air coming directly from the rotten furniture. Hermione sighed loudly when he saw something moving in the corner, it was a rat running fast, just like other venomous animals and bugs that composed the bizarre scenery.  
"I'll never complain about Remus' cabin again," said Sirius wiping his hand in his pants after accidentally leaning against the armchair near the window of the room.   
Hermione looked around, the cabin wasn't as big as it looked outside. The room was added to the kitchen, a stove as old as Voldemort himself was part of the room. There was also a door that probably led to the bathroom and two other doors that were supposed to be bedrooms.   
"If you were a genocidal madman, where would you hide part of your soul?" Hermione asked, walking toward the bookcase, the sounds of his boots echoing through the wooden floor.   
"I would have hidden it in the ocean." Hermione stared at him, "What is it? You've seen the size of the ocean, no one would ever find a horcrux there."  
There was sense in it, but Hermione said nothing more about it. Dumbledore didn't reveal this information to her, despite so many others.

Hermione analyzed book by book that composed the old-fashioned bookcase and was not surprised when he noticed that they were all black magic: potions, spells, tortures, ancient artifacts, and magic... She took one or two before hearing Sirius speak in a horrified voice.  
"Little bird, I think I found the ring." Hermione followed the sound of her voice going to one of the rooms at the end of the cabin, Sirius was standing at the door with the wand illuminating the room, when arriving behind him, Hermione managed to look over his shoulder and held a scream as she saw the corpse in the room. "At least there's no more cloth to stink from." Hermione threw a dull look at Sirius who just shrugged.  
The ring shone the light from their wand, someone's skull, and Hermione believed he was one of the Gaunts, laid on the bed, inert. That was so long ago?  
Slowly and looking around her, Hermione walked to the side of the skull's right arm, she analyzed the pile of bones for a moment before moving her hand toward the ring. And as soon as she touched the metallic rim, a scream erupted in the sepulchral silence of the room. It wasn't from Sirius and much less from her, she found out. It was from the skull that grabbed her arm with agility and strength.  
"A cursed skull!" Sirius shouted "That snake guy created a damned skull!" Black threw a stupid man in the direction of the damned creature, but it was no use. Her bony fingers grabbed the wrist of the chestnut more and more firmly over the scar made by Bellatrix, Hermione screamed in pain as he felt burning, black magic finding black magic, making him fall to his knees next to the creature of darkness. The hollow eyes became red as if the flames were burning behind it. Hermione grabbed the wand to try to keep the creature away, but the spell was no use, she also suspected that all that pain and the spells are done to break down the barriers had weakened its magic core.  
"I don't understand..." she murmured when Sirius, in the most muggled way possible, kicked the skull and allowed Hermione to finally let go. He pulled her into his arms and only then Hermione realized how terrified and trembling Black was. Sirius pushed her away from the creature that was coming together again.  
"What the fuck?" he said to her, covering her with his body in order to protect her.   
"Dumbledore didn't warn me about it," she caught herself thinking about what else he didn't warn her about.  
"He is not stopped by any spell," said Sirius after casting successive flashes of magic in the direction of the skull that approached them. Macabre sounds echoed through the house, and he pulled her out of the room.  
"No!" Hermione pulled her body from Sirius' grip "I'm not leaving without this horcrux drug.  
"Hermione, nothing hits him, he'll kill us... It's no use!" Her gray eyes face her with exasperation and dread.  
"We just need..." she searched her mind for solutions, they cast several spells, light spells... defensive... "Black magic..." she noticed pushing Sirius and passing in front of her, Hermione poked the wand towards the skull and murmured the spell that finally brought her down, the piece catching fire like a dry leaf in the middle of a fire. Even in flames, he approached Hermione, but before he could touch it the creature screamed in agony and became a blur of ashes on the ground, the house trembling and a black smoke starting from that hill towards Hermione, the piece of Voldemort's soul screamed and attacked, passing through his body and that of Sirius who was right behind her, knocking them down on the ground. Hermione fell against the wooden floor, the wand flying from his hand while the snow of what was a part of Voldemort's soul was dead.

"Fiendfyre?" Sirius coughed up with his elbows on the wooden floor, forcing himself to stand up again "That was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in my life. And I am auror." He put both hands around her face, wiping the black soot that covered her "Are you okay?" He looked her intensely in the eyes, worry and care shone there and Hermione felt protected. Welcomed.  
"I... am." she whispered putting her hands on his, a contact that lit something inside her, something she believed she had managed to control again since that night at the bar. She couldn't be more wrong. Sirius must have noticed something too because she smiled at her.  
Hermione then suddenly walked away, standing up and feeling that maybe she had been hurt at several points during that bloody battle. "Vol... you-know-how know."  
"What?" he asked her.  
"He knows that the first part of his soul was destroyed, he knows that someone knows about his dirty little secret, he knows that they are destroying them and he knows that he is in danger. He will come after the one who did it and will be relentless".  
"What does this mean?"  
"That Regulus has to be fast and that we have to increase our protections, he doesn't know about me yet?" she looked at the pile-up of ashes, a place that shone the stone of the ring "But soon he will know.   
They decided that that was a good time to leave before a horde of diners or the lord himself appeared there.   
Hermione summoned the stone before finally leaving the Gaunt's hut, the little crystal beating in his palm without Sirius being able to notice its movement.   
It was done. The final battle began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We arrived at that part of the story where the facts will be more developed, characters begin to appear and connect, and of course, where the action begins and becomes more interesting. Although the next three chapters are bittersweet, you-know-how is about to recognize Hermione. And then, everything will really start!


	12. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione will spend Christmas at the Potter's house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit extensive, to make up for my absence! Besides, our wanted heroine will have one of her last moments soft before history truly begins. Voldemort is coming.  
> Enjoy!

Spending Christmas with the Potters was not something Hermione planned and much less expected him to do since he didn't even talk for more than ten minutes with James or Lily. However, Sirius and Remus made sure she was invited, she didn't know for sure how it happened, but she did.  
Hermione wore a red dress with long sleeves that went up to just above the knees, her hair was loose and she turned the bewitched time that now kept a deathly hallow hidden inside her robes. She arrived at Godric's Hollow with a pan of peach cobbler which she spent a good part of the day preparing, Hermione couldn't deny how anxious she was with the situation, she couldn't deny how surprised she still was every time she saw the resemblance of James with his Harry.  
After her mission, she thought she should rest and stay secluded in her apartment. Not that she wasn't ready for a possible attack, but she always tried to remember that unlike the other time, Voldemort couldn't locate her easily since there was no Harry and no bond.  
She apparated at Godric's Hollow, knocking on the door on time. A redhead in a green dress welcomed her with a captivating smile and hugged her sideways while Hermione was still holding the pie dish.  
"I am so happy that you accepted our invitation! I was looking forward to getting to know Hermione better, except it's great not to be the only woman in a room full of boys". Lily came a little closer to whisper "Stupid boys."  
"I heard that, Evans." Sirius appeared behind her, looking like a big, bad piece of road with her jeans, boots, white T-shirt, and jacket. Hermione had to face her pie in order to turn off what he had attached to her at that moment.  
"I'm a Potter now." She corrected him.  
"For me, you will always be an Evans." Sirius winked at her and deflected the redhead's body that was standing in front of Hermione "Very happy to see you, little bird..." the Black pulled the platter out of the chestnut's hands and smelled like a real "Peach Pie? My favorite."  
Hermione tried to ignore the fact that she knew this information. And that deep down she had done it thinking exclusively of him.  
Before she could add anything, Black turned her back and went towards what Hermione presumed to be the kitchen, Lily finally signaled for her to enter the house and helped Hermione to take the huge overcoat. The Christmas winter was about to kill that year.  
As they left their clothes on the Potter's rack they both headed to the living room so that Hermione could greet the other maureders. James and Remus were sitting on two different sofas separated by a coffee table that supported witch chess, the image immediately took her to her two best friends and her heart squeezed, her eyes automatically marbling and forcing Hermione to blink fast to disguise.  
Hermione stood staring at them in complete nostalgia, just waving to Lily slowly when she said she needed to check something in the kitchen.  
"Wow, birdie..." Hermione was startled by Sirius' voice, she turned and saw him drinking every inch of his body with her eyes. Hermione felt her face warming up like the rest of her body through the look she found in those beautiful gray orbs, she felt her abdomen contracting and her imagination taking her to abandoned places. Like a room. Like a bed. Like the two free of any clothes. "You look absolutely wonderful tonight, breathtaking."  
"Leave her alone, Black." Lily appeared beside him, hitting him with a dishcloth. "She's my guest tonight and you must keep quiet."  
"But it was me who asked for her to be invited." He justified himself by looking at the redhead with a little childlike pout.  
"Actually, it was you two" she pointed to Remus "and I believed more in Remus.  
"Thanks, Lils." Werewolf answered from the couch with a smile on his lips as James grinned at Sirius, who stood by Hermione's side.  
"Do you see that, little bird?" Black passed his arms wrapped around his shoulders "I'm treated like crap by my best friends..."  
"Maybe if you were a little more serious... You know, to be less you." she joked under his arms, and coming out of her grip, it was too risky to be around Sirius Black, she noticed. He was like a magnet, if you stayed close enough all of a sudden you'd be glued to him, fused. She tried to ignore the look he cast at her when Hermione went towards the sofa, as close as possible to Lily. But it was impossible to ignore him, especially when he moistened his lips looking at something on her face. Hermione suspected that her lips.  
"And then, tell me about yourself." Lily interrupted her line of thought that we're still in the way Sirius was looking at her.  
"Well, you know, I'm from London, but I moved to the United States not too long ago to work at M.A.C.U.S.A. as an in-house agent." Hermione noticed how the lie flowed freely through her lips, it was obvious, she rehearsed thousands of times until it came out naturally.  
"If my memory serves me right, you went to Hogwarts, didn't you?" she questioned.  
"Only the first years, ravenclaw" she smiled, couldn't reveal that one day it belonged to gryffindor, since then they should remember her.  
"I don't remember you," Lily commented. "But the early years are kind of foggy for me anyway. Anyway, I don't care about your work, the meetings of the order are enough..." Lily rolled her eyes and took her hands without noticing "Your family? Friends? Boyfriend? Tell me who you are."  
Hermione vehemently ignored the look the green irises cast on Black when the word boyfriend left Lily's lips. The chestnut went silent, not knowing for sure for the first time what she should say.  
She rehearsed a cliché answer thousands of times, but it was hard... It was so hard.  
"No friends, no family, no boyfriend." she answered in a low voice, "Dead."  
Lilian took his hands to his mouth and James raised his eyes from the board impressed, Sirius and Remus not being surprised, although they directed a compassionate look at him.  
"It's all right guys, it's been a while." Hermione held Lily's soft hand and squeezed it, the redhead offered her a smile of support and encouragement.  
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm literally starving to death." Sirius stood up and pointed to Lilian "Woman, I hope you made my favorite lasagna!  
"Black, I told you, don't use that tone with me or I will estupore you!  
"James would never allow that, would he, friend?" Sirius ran to James' side and clung to his arm dramatically. Potter rolled his eyes and pushed him as if his friend had the plague.  
"Don't put me in the middle of it, I fought for the girl and now I'm just her doormat..." said James, pushing a half-eyed Sirius.  
"You little bitch..."  
"Look at the mouth!" Lily threw a pillow at the man.  
"Look at you, you look like you're still at Hogwarts... Like that time James..." Remus began to tell an adventure of the bad guys, and in the meantime, Hermione nodded to Sirius in gratitude for the relief of tension that he provided to the weather since he deflected the subject very well.  
A beautiful Christmas dinner later and hilarious stories that Hermione did not know during dinner, they exchanged gifts in the "magical secret friend" that James explained to him in the morning in the letter in which the name of Remus arrived.  
"It's a pity that Peter couldn't have participated, he's so absent lately, hardly comes to see us and barely sends owls. He says he's very busy with work and with his sick mother," Lily commented as they headed to the couch to exchange gifts.  
She felt Sirius harden on the other couch and exchanged a warning look with him.  
"Really, it's a shame he's not among us," she murmured between her teeth, stretching her hand to reach for the bottle of firewhisky. "Served?"  
Lily and Hermione shook their heads while the other men accepted the suggestion.  
"Shouldn't we wait for someone?" Hermione asked if sitting next to the redhead "You know, we're in an odd number, someone will be missing."  
"I know that, and I've taken care of it, so rest assured." Sirius said, pouring another dose of booze, a smile slowly appearing in her frown.  
It happened that Lily took James and gave him a T-shirt of her favorite quidditch team.  
James took off Sirius and gave her a helmet.  
"It's for Ruby, this one has too much protection and Lily helped me with a spell so that your hair does not mess, I know how vain you are as a lady" said James laughing to his friend.  
"How thoughtful Prongs, but I must add that I was waiting for you to fulfill your promise to get me those entries for the championship final with Holyhead Harpies that you promised me ...".  
"Do you know how much that costs? I'm gonna be a daddy, man, I can't..."  
"James Potter!" shouted Lily in amazement when her friends opened their mouths and Hermione opened a smile that occupied her entire face.  
"Damn it Lils, I'm sorry!" asked James while his wife still blamed him.  
"I always knew you'd be the first, you quickie..." Sirius threw himself on top of his friend rubbing his fist on James' head in a lively way.  
"Congratulations Lily and James, I'm really happy for you!" said Remus with a genuine smile.  
"Congratulations Lily." said Hermione hugging her suddenly, a strong and protective hug, happy that nothing has changed. Harry was there, he was present. I was spending Christmas with her. Hermione closed her eyes to keep the tears from overflowing.  
"You can't cry, you know, I'm very sensitive here," Lily said, looking at a Hermione with wet eyes.  
"I'm sorry, it just makes me very emotional. I'm sorry, it just makes me very emotional... I'm really happy for you guys," she shook Lily's hands and offered her a smile.  
"Thank you, Hermione." Lily smiled back.  
"I want to make a ball, here and now!" Sirius stood up, the glass of whiskey in one of his hands, and with the other free he pointed to Lily. "I bet it's going to be a boy." He cast a funny look at Hermione who blamed him but didn't avoid the laughter.  
"Lily and I have already bet, I think it will be a girl". Said James excited.  
"I think so too," said Remus.  
"Right, whoever makes a mistake..." Sirius stopped for a moment, thinking a lot about his proposal. "I know, you'll have to keep your hair blue or pink for a month."  
"One month?" said James staring at him "We work in the ministry man."  
"It's your son man, he's worth all this sacrifice and ridicule." He threw himself next to James and passed his arm over his shoulder "Besides I'm sure it will be a boy, so different from you, I don't need to worry. Hermione held his will to turn his eyes for Black's dishonesty.  
"Right, but Hermione's guess is missing." Said the Black in defiance of her to enter his game.  
"I think it's best not to opine." Hermione defended himself, "That's a bet between friends."  
"You're our friend now, Hermione." Lily held his hand again, "Come on, make your guess."  
"A boy." She stared Sirius in the eye when she said, challenging him back.  
"Clever girl" he answered by taking the last sip of the glass and getting up "Well, let's continue the gift distribution... And without much mystery, I took the two most beautiful girls from this room and my whole life," he said staring at Hermione for a long time. First, he delivered Lily's gift pretending to flirt with her and taking a kick from James with one - she is pregnant with a baby of mine, her maniac - And then he looked again at Hermione and she felt her face warming up. "Come and get your little bird present."  
"That's not fair." That's what Hermione found herself able to say "You had to buy two gifts."  
"Thanks to my only wise uncle Alphard, I'm rich little bird." He handed her a velvet box and Hermione looked at him suspiciously.  
"What is Sirius Black?"  
"He'll only know how to open it." Hermione said in his arrogant and funny way, opened the box and came across a golden necklace, whose pendant was an hourglass, very similar to the turner team he was carrying around his neck at that very moment.  
"I can't..." she pushed the box back to him "It must have cost a fortune..."  
"Ah, you go Miss Granger." He took the necklace from the box and made a sign with his finger to turn it over, his cheeks warmed up when he saw the look of everyone in the room over her, especially the complicit look that James and Lily exchanged.  
"Meaningful, don't you think? It was the time that brought you to me," he whispered low when he closed the necklace on her neck, held the pendant between his fingers, and felt it warm "Whenever you need it.  
She smiled, it wasn't just a necklace, it was like the A.D. coin, it was to communicate whenever she needed help.  
"Thank you." She smiled at him and was on her way to pick up her gift when Lily pigeoned, Hermione looked at her without understanding and the redhead pointed her head at something above their head.  
The mistletoe.  
Sirius lured her to the drug of mistletoe that she hadn't even noticed, he was purposely close to the liquor cabinet.  
She should have noticed, noticed that for Lily he gave the gift near the bookcase and then walked there so he could kiss her.  
"That was very low Black." She whispered in embarrassment when everyone stared at her with malicious giggles.  
"It's tradition, love." He said as he approached, one hand reaching his cheek while the other grabbed the curve of his waist.  
"It's just a quick kiss." He warned Hermione obstinately following the movements of his seductive lips approaching his own.  
"Of course, of course." She was sure Sirius didn't know what she had agreed to.  
His lips were soft and warm. And unlike the other time, there was no unconscious hunger and imminent despair, just a soft touch, a light glide, Sirius pressed her little by little, pulling her small body against his, he followed the drawing of her lips with his, giving little kisses until finally taking it, it was good as the other time. Only more tender, more affectionate, and more like the calm Sirius sometimes caused her.  
Without noticing Hermione took her arms to his shoulders, holding herself, she admitted to herself that it was because she felt weak because what she felt was too strong for her. And it was fantastic, beautiful and breakable.  
"We expected just a little kiss..." said James jokingly, and Lily slapped him, Hermione slowly let go of the Black, suddenly ashamed of the audience watching them. Sirius gazed at her friend, looking as sad as she did at the loss of contact.  
"W-w-well" pigeoned to firm her voice and directed herself to pick up Remus' gift in the extendable pocket of her coat, the huge box of manner left him and Hermione held her as tight as she could, once her hands were shaken by the recent contact with Black. "I guess it's no secret to anyone that you are my secret magic friend". She laughed as she headed for Remus, making sure she stayed away from the mistletoe this time.  
Remus smiled and stood up picking up the big box of bottles that Hermione didn't even bother to wrap.  
"Sorry, I didn't have any gift wrapping paper," she said without grace, releasing the wooden box over his hands.  
"It's okay, Hermione. I'm just wondering what it was? A toolbox?" she laughed and nibbled her fingernail nervously as he deposited the box on the table and analyzed the bottles with a dark green potion. "What is this Hermione?" he stood up against the light and analyzed it thoroughly.  
"Wolfsbane."  
"Where did you get this?" he almost knocked over the bottle when he stood up to face her as if she had suddenly turned into a goddess, his eyes shone for her, happy, happy as she has never seen. That potion was expensive and difficult to prepare, she took so long to make it without mistakes.  
"Well, I did. It took me a while to learn, but finally I..." and when she noticed she was off the ground and being crushed by the arms of a very happy and relieved werewolf. That potion was expensive enough that Remus couldn't take it for 30 days before it turned.  
"Thank you, Hermione, thank you indeed." Little by little he returned her to the ground, held her face between his hands "You don't know what this means to me."  
"Yes, I do, I had a werewolf friend remember?" she smiled widely for him, while he pulled her once more by his arms and repeated thousands of thanks that warmed her heart in a way that much did not happen.  
About an hour later, it was time to go and Hermione felt sad for such a fun and exciting night to come to an end.  
"I didn't know you knew about Remus' problem" said Lily at the door while Hermione picked up her overcoat, the boys had gone up to see something about quidditch teams that the two didn't care.  
"I'm very observant, I knew it as soon as I saw it," she said "But as you may have noticed, this is no problem for me, considering what we both face in the witch world, we understand Remus more than anyone else. Lily smiled at her.  
"I'm glad you're part of our little misfit club now," she smiled. "Just be patient, Hermione, he's much deeper and more special than he looks.  
Hermione could pretend she didn't understand your comment, but she was smarter than that.  
"We don't... I don't... It's complicated Lilian."  
"It always is. That's how I found out James was the right one." The redhead winked at her, "I'll be here in the future for whatever you might want to discuss."  
"I didn't..." she shut up, she didn't know what I was doing.  
"We'll walk you home little bird," said Sirius, wearing his leather jacket, Remus was right behind him, and Hermione suddenly felt uncomfortable.  
"I think I'd better go home alone," she said to him, "I'm going to the apparate in front of my apartment, it's okay," she reassured the animagus when he glanced at her.  
"Are you sure about this Hermione?" Remus said, coming out beside her holding the box of potions as if someone was going to steal at any moment.  
"I am." She smiled "And don't forget, you have to take a bottle every day after the full moon, so, unfortunately, you'll have to wait for the next transformation..."  
"It's okay, at least I have it now," he said happily patting the box.  
"Well, thank you very much for welcoming me so well, I know I'm new to this - group of misfits - as Lílian put it, but I was very happy to feel at home after so long." She was forced to stop talking, fearing that her voice would embargo.  
She nodded one last time and caught Sirius' worried look, then shook her head lightly and disappeared, falling into the alley next to the apartments where she lived. She missed the Weasleys as she climbed the stairs to the third floor, missed feeling at home with them, missed hugging and kissing Ron, making sure it was him... It was always him... God, Ron would be born a few months ago and she had only seen Arthur so far, a happy Arthur and not tormented.  
"Something's wrong." He murmured when he got to the door, the magic barriers were broken and the corridor smelled like blood. Blood? She took the cord between her fingers and squeezed it "Sirius I need help."  
With the wand in hand and keeping her mind fixed on a spell, she unlocked the door and then entered, that's when she saw him bloody on the floor..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like the interaction of the maureders? Do you want more participation from Lily and James in the next chapters?  
> See you later!


	13. Bellatrix's Curse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione deals with the invader with the help of Sirius.  
> Sirius reveals a part of his past.  
> Sirius knows about the connection with Hermione but reveals nothing to her.

Regulus was not well at all.  
Hermione and Sirius spent almost all night taking care of his injuries and he still hadn't stopped bleeding. She searched his stocks for some replacement potions or anything else that would stop him from bleeding. But he just wouldn't stop.  
"I don't know what to do, Sirius." Her hands trembled as the younger Black presented a deep cut in his abdomen that gushed dense and dark blood, Hermione was uncovered, and with her clothes soaked from that blood and her own sweat "I've tried spells, potions... He won't stop bleeding, I've never seen it before..."  
"I've seen it." Hermione turned to him astonished "It's pure black magic and I only know someone who's ever been able to use that spell..."  
The look Sirius cast on her would always be marked in her mind, it was a terrified and traumatized look, a look of one who had already been tortured. A look she found every time she looked in the mirror.  
"P-Please don't talk..."  
"Bellatrix Lestrange." he completed by making Hermione shiver where she was, still with her hands holding a cloth firmly against Regulus abdomen.  
"How did this happen Regulus?" she asked herself more since the younger Black disagreed and increasingly pale. "Can you reverse this?"  
"I can't do that, if they detect that kind of spell on my wand I'll be removed from office," he faced her "You do." Said the older Black.  
Hermione laughed in ridicule.  
"How am I going to do that, Sirius? Will you teach me? Do you really think I'd know how to master a dark spell at first?" she sank the cloth further against Regulus' wound "I can kill you. She concluded with the look wandering on the pale and unconscious face of Sirius' brother.  
"If we don't try he will die anyway." Sirius was as desperate as she was, Hermione realized, Regulus was her brother after all. Hermione without having any other option nodded her head slowly and sighed calling his wand and abandoning the pressure on the wound.  
Sirius seemed nervous as he guided her, said the specific words, and when she shook enough to rip someone's head off with the wand, he stood behind her and held her hand, whispering the words of the spell in her ear. And then a blue flash slowly swept Regulus and the blood that came out returned little by little.  
"It seems... Sectusempra." she stared at him, "Did she use that on him?"  
"I have no idea what the spell is." Hermione recalled that Snape created this spell at that time, it was something new to them.  
"It's like a sword hit you in several directions," she explained, suddenly noticing that they were still too close. Hermione moved away, her hands still shaking as they held the handle of her wand.  
"I don't know what name Bellatrix gives to this spell, but she has already hit me with it" the memory of Sirius' abdomen flooded his mind, the huge scar in the same place as Regulus "It happened when I decided to leave home once and for all, it was a terrible fight and Bellatrix wanted to teach me a lesson. You suffocate in your own blood and feel the pain, over and over again..." the haunted look that was present on Sirius' face indicated that it was probably not Snape's spell, it was something much darker, something that made the witch suffer much worse torture. Hermione trembled and his heart squeezed as he imagined Sirius in a situation like this "While we were trying to bring him back, he got stuck in his worst nightmares, reliving them without stopping, without being able to scream, without being able to wake up? Feeling useless garbage that is not able to end his own pain..." those words, Hermione noticed, did not refer only to Regulus, but to what he went through. She noticed his tormented countenance, not as much as after his long years at Azkaban, but suddenly Sirius in front of him reminded him of the other Sirius. She bit her lip and didn't hold on when her feet moved in the direction of the Black, her arms wrapping his shoulders and bringing him to the warmth of her body. He was tense in a way Hermione never saw him, but the slow beats of his heart kept, his hands slowly sliding over her, reaching the center of her back and pulling her closer to him.  
"I'm sorry," she said low without looking at him.  
"It was hard for a while, usually you don't forget what you see".  
"What did you see?" she asked in a string of voice. He didn't answer. But his body showed that he was reliving the nightmare in that very minute.  
"It doesn't matter." He walked away, "We just have to know how Reg will be when he wakes up."  
She looked him in the eye for a long time, deciding whether to leave it quiet or to talk about it. Considering she herself didn't like to discuss her own traumas, she decided she should give Black some space.  
"I soiled you with blood" is what she decided to say. Black's white shirt had several red shades "I'm sorry."  
"It's okay. It was worth it to have his hands around me. Again." He blinked at her trying to relieve the tension and Hermione rolled her eyes offering a smile to him.  
Regulus woke up a few hours later murmuring incoherent things. She and Sirius had sat on the couch and before he realized she had slept against him at a strange angle. Meanwhile, both were strangely comfortable. But when Regulus groaned and called for help, Hermione got up scaring Sirius with the movement, which caused the brunette to hold her protective against him.  
"It's all right, Regulus woke up," she stroked his arm so he would let her go. Slowly Sirius did it, rubbing his free hand in his eyes, Regulus groaned when Hermione squatted beside him, took his hand to his forehead, and felt his temperature.  
"He's hot."  
"Thank you." He let go with a little smile and Hermione conjured up a cold compress.  
"Did he just make a malicious joke? He must really be delirious." Sirius said after she and Hermione blamed him for the look.  
"Get him some water and make him a broth... a soup, something like that."  
"A soup?" Sirius questioned her, "Hermione, I'm a 20-year-old man with domestic elves."  
Hermione stared at him in exasperation.  
"Then hold that compress to his forehead." Sirius slowly approached her brother and did what she asked, while Hermione used her wand to make the ingredients go to the pot with water on the stove and move by themselves. "And just to make it clear, I don't agree with the use of elves."  
"I know, I saw it in your memories... S.P.E.W., didn't I?" had a little laugh on his lips, the same laugh that was on Harry and Ron's lips when she came up with the initiative at Hogwarts.  
"Wipe that little smile off her face." she checked the broth and it was thickening, with a spoon she tasted and it wasn't so bad. She had lost a lot of weight eating practically only broth for a year when they were in search of horcruxs. "Can he sit down?" she said taking a plate and putting some broth.  
Sirius helped her semi-conscious brother move and sit better on the half-hard couch in Hermione's temporary apartment room. He groaned and panting, while Hermione reached for the repository potion and poured it over the bowl, the chestnut approached Regulus and gave a good three spoonfuls before the Black coughed and opened his eyes.  
"Thank God," she said, sighing a sigh of relief, it seemed she had held her breath all night long.  
"Couldn't you have just given her the potion right away?" Sirius observed.  
\- Her taste is horrible, he would have to spit it out," she replied, shoving two more spoonfuls into his mouth, when she looked at Sirius again he had a funny look on his face.  
"You look like a mother acting like this."  
"I had to take care of two idiots in the future, believe it or not, this is not the first time I've done something like this," she laughed with the memory.  
"They were lucky to have you then." He analyzed her with an affectionate little smile, "I'm lucky you're here."  
"You are and if it wasn't for that" she pointed to the chest where the necklace he gave her hung "Maybe Regulus wouldn't have survived, I wouldn't know what to do... So, thank you."  
"Are you kidding? You saved my brother's life twice, I'm the one who should be thanking you." Regulus tumbled his head back again, probably exhausted, but now the potion would act much better.  
The two decided that taking Regulus to a bed would be better, so Sirius levitated his body to Hermione's bed and deposited him there.  
"What a beautiful Christmas morning, don't you think?" said Hermione with a laugh when he looked out the window and saw the first sun rays, the two were still dressed in the clothes of the previous night, but both Sirius and she were dirty of Regulus' blood. "You should go to the house," she leaned her head on his shoulder, feeling the tiredness reach his body.  
"You don't think I would do that, do you?" he looked over the hair that fell on her face, she knew she wouldn't, Sirius was entitled to become a dog, he was faithful as hell.  
"I need a bath." she sighed, pouring more weight from her body on his shoulder.  
"Did you just invite me to a foaming bath, little bird?" Hermione let go of him and as she was about to staple him, she saw the funny sparkle in his eyes and the cretinous smile on his lips.  
"I'm still with idiots." she pushed him lightly "But you can bathe after me..."  
"And can I use your sponge?" he took a step closer to her, bending down to get his eyes at her eye level, Hermione swallowed dry, but couldn't stop his eyes from traveling to his lips. He got closer, passing a hand by her waist and making her breasts lean against him, Hermione's fists stopped on his hard chest and his eyes fought. He got closer.  
"No." She lowered her head, her forehead resting briefly on his chest.  
"Why not, little bird?" he said from the top of her head, pulling her body more.  
Why not? Hermione had so many answers to that.  
Because he was her best friend's godfather's drug.  
Because she met him when she was 13.  
Because she would never belong to that time even though she could never return to the place she came from.  
Because it was risky.  
Because kissing him would cause catastrophes unimaginable in the future.  
Because his brother was passed out in the bed next door.  
Because she had a fiancé and still loved him very much.  
Because she forgot about Ron when he was around.  
Because Sirius with his cretin jokes accelerated her heart.  
Because she knew that if she kissed him she would be one step away from letting him in.  
And letting him in meant putting a target on his back, it meant she would have to care about something bigger than the mission she took on, it meant it was so, so risky.  
It meant that she had accepted his bond with Sirius and that she admitted how strong that was, like an invisible magnet pulling at him. All. Of. Time.  
Because she had no more excuses to pretend she didn't want Sirius.  
Because she wanted to. God. She wanted him a lot.  
And Lily Potter was certainly right in every word of it. (And she would probably set off fireworks if she admitted that.)  
"I just don't... I can't Sirius, there's too much at stake here," she whispered against his chest, listening to his heartbeat racing.  
"I don't care." She felt the vibration of her lips on top of her forehead, it was good and it was so... disturbing. "I only care about you, and how strong we both feel. God, little bird, if you feel only 1% of what I feel every time I am in the same room with you, I know it will be mutual. You know what we are, you just don't want to admit it".  
"You don't care, Black. But I do care. I care a lot." She walked away from him, "I care too much and that's why" she gestured to the space between the two, "It can't happen."  
"It's going to happen Hermione Jean Granger! It's inevitable and you know it" he approached her again and she retreated. "All right little bird, some people take longer to notice than others" he winked at her and went towards the bedroom door "Do you like coffee?  
"I prefer tea." he murmured in response and he was gone.  
Hermione stood there, feeling an uncomfortable emptiness as his words echoed and echoed inside his head "Some people take longer to notice than others", what did he mean by that?  
She was the smartest witch of her time. But he always knew that questions of the heart were never his strong point.  
But apparently, it was Black's strong point.


	14. Diary of Tom Riddle.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regulus tells how he managed to break into Hermione's apartment and tells how he got the new horcrux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I really disappeared for a few days, right? Blame it on the college, it sucked my soul out for the last few days, but the vacations finally arrived and I'll be back to finish the story.  
> Oh no, this story is far from over... And I hope you will accompany her there!  
> Enjoy your reading!

Regulus woke up in the late afternoon, Hermione didn't see the exact moment, as she and Sirius squeezed themselves on the little sofas in the room and simply fell asleep for the rest of the day. But then the younger Black shaken her shoulder and was almost unlucky for her, as Hermione developed the habit of sleeping with a wand under her pillow.   
"It's me, it's me, Regulus." he repeated with his hands up as a sign of surrender, swallowing dry as he felt the outline of the tip of her wand in his throat.   
"Never wake up a witch like that." She lowered the wand slowly and sat down on the couch again, Regulus was not as pale as the day before and had put on his shirt again, probably after doing some spell to remove the blood "Are you okay?  
"Very well, thank you" he faced her "It's serious, you saved my life".  
"It was Sirius." She pointed to the other Black who was rubbing her eyes and seemed happy to see her younger brother well.   
"I just told him the spell, Hermione did the rest," he sat down and stretched his arms above his head stretching, even though it was the biggest sofa in the room, that sofa wasn't enough to accommodate him properly, so he had a sore back.   
"Anyway, thank you both." Regulus sat in the armchair and was stared at by the other two. "You must have a lot of questions..."  
"In fact." Hermione sat in Buddha's position and made a coke on his messy, dirty hair "How did you get in here in that state? My barriers were strong... Strong enough."  
"Severus Snape saved me." Hermione was surprised and Sirius let out a strange grunt through his lips "I didn't quite understand why, I really thought he was the right arm of the dark lord... But he brought me here, knocked down the barriers to leave me and then went as fast as he came".  
"He left you dying on the ground?" asked Sirius, the clearly tactile anger in his tone of voice "That big-nose..."  
"Sirius!" Hermione rebuked him, "What happened to you? Sirius told me that this spell is very characteristic of the witch who cast it," she said bluntly to prevent Regulus from lying.  
"It was Christmas Eve at the Malfoy mansion, they offered the family a dinner to celebrate the conception of the first heir of the Malfoy".

"Draco is going to be born." she said taking her hand to her chest, close to her heart, feeling suddenly breathless as she glimpsed her memories of the prejudiced and stupid boy, but who was also a tormented, frightened, sad boy with no choices. The boy who redeemed himself after the war, the boy who saved her from having the same fate as Harry and Rony.  
"The weasel guy is going to have a son?" was Sirius' comment to his brother, both Hermione and Regulus looked at him with boredom at the man, and he leaned back on the sofa keeping quiet.   
"And then I put our plan into practice, I went to Malfoy's office and looked for Tom Riddle's diary, just like I saw in his memories. I found it" and then a tormented look came to his eyes "But someone came into the office when I was about to leave, finding the diary in my hands and asking why I was taking something that was not mine.  
"Bellatrix." murmured Hermione.  
"Yes, our cousin. She saw the lord's real name stuck in the diary and her eyes went crazy, that's when we duelled, but of course she is stronger than me, especially in the magic of darkness ... And then she hit me with that demonic spell" he seemed to get stuck inside his head for a moment and Sirius took pity on his brother, probably because he went through the same thing "I felt the constant pain and when I fainted I got stuck inside my head, reliving my worst nightmares non-stop... The failure in this mission drug, the torture at the hands of the dark lord... My parents discovering that I am a traitor..."  
"Now they know Reg, Bella must have told everyone."  
"They think I'm dead." Hermione and Sirius exchanged a look of surprise.  
"What do you mean?"  
"When I was dying on the floor, it was Snape who arrived, he cast that cold, remorseless look at me, while Bella just smiled as if she was seeing a bunch of bunnies." Sirius cursed and called her a sadist as she walked around Hermione's room, looking too agitated to stand still. “  
"And Bella believed it?" asked Sirius with an ironic laugh on her lips.  
"Mom would kill her Sirius, she would never believe that I would betray the fucking you-know-who. Because unlike you, I always did what Mom wanted".  
"Yeah, you really did." Sirius looked with disgust at where the black mark was probably.  
"Somehow Bella believed in him and allowed him to take me, and for a moment I thought that was really the end of me, that you couldn't stop me from dying," he stared at the ground "That's when I came here, it was Snape who knocked down the barriers and left me here, he knew you'd show up at any moment.  
"And the diary?"  
"Bella took it from my hands and put it in the same place, this time putting a powerful spell so that nobody would touch it".  
"Damn, how are we gonna get him now?" Hermione took his hands to his face and covered him, rubbing his face with exasperation. Breaking into Malfoy's mansion was the same thing as a death sentence and she faithfully believed that if one day she returned to that place she would have a panic attack, many memories, many painful memories. As if to remember that, the scar throbbed on her forearm.   
"Oh, no, Miss Granger. You won't want that diary," said Regulus with a smile, removing from inside the forgotten jacket in the corner of the room a notebook with a black cape.  
"Did you do it again?" Hermione smiled wide and without restraining herself hugged the younger Black, feeling his muscles tense, probably not used to that kind of closeness "Great!" she let him go holding the diary firmly in her own hands.  
"Okay, so that's how people get such a hug from you?" said Sirius behind him, making Hermione move her gaze to him "Give me the name of the next horcrux, I'll destroy it and become your hero.  
"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione and Regulus said together.  
"That was absolutely genius, Regulus. In my time, Lucius put this diary in the cauldron of Ginevra Weasley, the last of Arthur and Molly's generation, thinking it was the cauldron of Harry. Then Gina was manipulated by you-know-who and reopened the secret chamber in my second year. That's when the basilisk started petrifying several people at school. Even me."  
"You were petrified?" Sirius looked at her worried and how by instinct he got closer to her. He always did this when he heard about her stories from the past, it was like an illusion that he could protect her from them. He was cute.

"I was, but it's okay. The feeling is a little strange. But Harry talked to the diary." The two of them stared at her without understanding and Hermione reached a feather, wetting her in the ink while the two brothers positioned themselves behind her to observe "If you write in this diary, the Tom Riddle of 1950 answers you and that's what Harry did try to find out who was the monster in the secret chamber, it didn't help of course... And when I found out what it was I was petrified before I could tell anyone. But Harry found the page of the book in the shape of a ball in my hand, it was already late, of course, Gina was almost dying so that the lord of darkness could live. It was then that Harry destroyed this horcrux". Hermione to the blank pages of the diary, the feather firmly stuck between her fingers.  
She lowered the feather and wrote.

_Hello, my name is Hermione Jean Granger._

  
Just as Hermione expected, the words disappeared, as if they were being absorbed in the paper.   
"What the fuck is that?" Sirius let go.

  
_Hello Hermione, my name is Tom. Tom Riddle. How did you find this diary?_

  
"Is there any chance the dark lord of now knows where this horcrux is?" asked Regulus curiously.  
"No, you-know-who would only know if I destroyed the diary. He would feel a part of it dying, for sure. So let's wait to destroy it."  
"And why should we do that?" wondered Sirius.  
"Because destroying a horcrux of the dark lord is saying that we know about his dirty little secret and that we're moving forward."  
"But we destroyed the ring..." said Sirius confused.  
"You-know-who knows that Dumbledore is on his trail, he also knows that he is the closest to discovering his secret, so we can say that Voldemort still wouldn't suspect us because he thinks it was Dumbledore who found and destroyed his first horcrux".  
"What if he already knows about you?" asked Regulus.  
"He doesn't know, but he will soon know. And when he does..."  
"And when he knows?" Sirius asked, staring deep into his eyes.  
"He will know who I am and will do everything to destroy me, he will be ruthless, just as he was in my time. And then, my dear Black brothers, I will have to flee."  
Hermione faced again the white leaves of the diary, the silence of the room allowing the sound of the street to be audible there in her apartment, abandoning the feather on the table, the chestnut closed the diary with a black cape and released a long sigh, suddenly she felt the incredible weight of the purest black magic between her fingers.  
"Do you think anyone else knows about them?" Regulus asked, after the endless moment of silence the three of them did.  
"No. Tom Riddle would never tell his diners about his greatest point of vulnerability. Besides, he doesn't want anyone else to have the same idea, it's dangerous for someone like him that other people get the same power. Besides, if the lord knew the diary was destroyed, Malfoy would pay with his life".  
"I don't give a damn about Lucius," said Sirius.  
"Ok, but I can't stop Draco's birth. We should wait more, lose who really was to blame for the disappearance of his horcrux. Moreover, Bellatrix knows that something of the dark lord was under Lucius' protection, that Regulus tried to steal him and that Severus helped her to disappear with him. Thus, when the Lord of Darkness would release all his wrath against Lucius, Bella would conclude that Regulus is alive and that Snape is a traitor". Hermione turned her eyes to Regulus "In the present moment, you must pretend to be dead, in my time, you suddenly disappeared, and for long enough for them to reach the conclusion that you are dead. In fact, you were, but now, you will just disappear and help me in the missions".

"What if someone sees me?"  
"You'd be scared of how much polyjuice potion I have."  
"Little bird, sometimes you scare me at how genius you are," Sirius said with an admired smile.  
"I just had time to think about every detail." She had so much to do yet but had done enough by now, there was one horcrux destroyed and another in her own hands at that moment.  
Gaunt's ring. Ok.  
Diary. Okay.  
The medallion, the cup, and the diadem were missing.  
The Prewett twins, the Longbottoms, and preventing Voldemort from reaching the prophecy before her.  
"We will have two weeks off," Hermione declared, "we will rest and prepare for the next mission.  
"What is it?" asked Sirius.  
"Finally we will know the crystal cave."  
Regulus' eyes met hers for a long time, she read very clearly what she found there. There was fear, but also curiosity. He knew, after all, Regulus would face the day and place of his death.


	15. The Crystal Cave (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione, Regulus, Sirius and Remus are preparing for the mission in the crystal cave, but need to convince Kreacher to help them.  
> Sirius is concerned about Hermione's future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mission of the crystal cave will be divided into three parts, part II will be posted even today. Enjoy your reading! :)

Telling Remus Lupin about the mission in the crystal cave, without having to reveal the whole truth, was one of the strangest and most difficult things Hermione ever did. Mainly because besides telling about Tom Riddle's diary, she also had to explain why Regus Black was in his room at that moment, and how he had managed to get there.  
Currently dead to the rest of Hermione's witchy world and roommate, the younger Black was quieter than Hermione imagined.  
In fact, it was strange to live with Regulus, sometimes it seemed that he wasn't there, but he was, looking at her as a scientist observes his white mouse. And in those isolated two weeks, she spent long periods with her cauldron, preparing potions and also a new mode of communication they could use among themselves, since after Regulus' attack, Hermione worried that there could be many more unplanned attacks. After all, she had already changed the past and a new timeline was unfolding. Hermione only frequently wondered what her end would be.  
At the end of that week, Hermione handed an enchanted coin to Sirius, although the two could communicate through the necklace that Black had given her. She made seven coins: one for Sirius, one for Regulus, one for Remus, one for Snape (even if no one else knew about it), one for Lily, one for James, and one for herself. And maybe she made it seem that Peter also received one.  
What a great joke.  
"So you're no longer a death eater?" Remus asked, staring at the younger Black lying in the armchair, the werewolf's eyes wandered to his forearm with irony and disbelief. Regulus, perceived Hermione, despite his austere and inexpressive countenance, was quite bothered by the judgmental look.  
"And aren't you a werewolf? In our world, a creature as suspicious as a death eater, don't you think?" Regulus answered, and Hermione had to be quick, entering the middle of the two at the very moment when Moony stood up growling in a threatening manner.  
"I trust him, Remus. And I trust Remus much more, Black." she stared at him the pale young man squint, sometimes Regulus could not hide his origins and it was there that Hermione noticed how different the two brothers were.  
Regulus had unwittingly called Hermione de mudblood about four times during those two weeks. Of course, he always apologized with vehemence soon after. One of the times Sirius was present and Regulus ended up with a broken nose and a serious death threat, forcing Hermione to intervene before a disaster happened.  
During those weeks they also observed an unusual movement at Burkes, the Goyles and Parkinson's appeared frequently throughout the week, and Hermione had to control himself so as not to cross the street and pretend to be interested in whatever the object was, just to try to listen to their conversation. Although he had no record of Burke getting directly involved with the Lord, Hermione found it very difficult now, it was as if he was the go-between for Voldemort's meetings or the search for new followers.  
The necklace on her neck warmed up again and Hermione rolled her eyes, she opened the door and found the other Black outside, the wand hanging loosely in her hand.  
"What was my Christmas gift to Lily Potter?" Hermione asked, pointing the wand at Sirius.  
"That was a good little bird, not for Lily, for Remus. Wolfsbane, inclusive". Hermione relaxed by lowering the wand. "My turn, what song was playing on the day of our pool game?"  
Hermione briefly rolled her eyes, feeling her face warming up briefly, probably the two men behind her didn't know exactly what it meant. But unfortunately, she knew and, unfortunately, the man with the stupid smile on his face too.  
"Every breath you take." she said with a clenched jaw, Sirius smiled and stepped forward into the apartment.  
Hermione took a deep breath of anticipation while closing the door again. It was time.  
"The crystal cave is a place that Tom Riddle made obscure, he met her in her childhood during a trip with the orphanage to which she belonged. At that time he was able to terrorize two children from the orphanage by taking them there. Years later he decided that there would be a place to put one of his horcrux, since it was difficult to access, even more so after he enchanted her with obscure spells," she looked at Regulus. "To equip her, we need a domestic elf, specifically the Kreacher.  
A sepulchral silence took over the room, the younger Black faced her with the impassive expression, but he was mistaken if he thought Hermione couldn't detect the overwhelming storm in his eyes.  
"The Lord used Kreacher to go to the cave and left him to die" the younger Black closed his fists while telling "But Kreacher managed to escape and revealed me what happened, that's how I found out about the horcrux's, that's how Hermione found me" they couldn't tell the truth, not in front of Moony "So, unfortunately, we need him to get to the cave".  
"And I don't know for sure what will happen in that cave, there are many dangers and a huge probability to go wrong". Hermione looked firmly in the eyes of home one of them "Someone will have to take the potion to get to the medallion. This potion will weaken the person who takes it until he practically dies. You must know that whoever takes the potion will beg you not to take it, but he must, otherwise, the medallion will never be reached".  
"Who will take it?" asked Remus.  
"I will."  
A sound that sounded like laughter mixed with a snitch came from Sirius' lips.  
"No way, little bird, I'll do it for you."  
"It's already decided Sirius, and frankly, we're out of time for discussions." Hermione took her coat and the little extendable bag before proceeding "And of course, someone will have to make me take the potion until the end.  
"I'll do it," said Sirius once again, her face twisted into a frown with the decision she made.  
"No, Regulus will." Sirius opened her mouth to refute it, ready for an endless discussion. But Hermione raised his hand to shut him up before he could say even one word "We have a bond, Sirius. You know it, you know you could never make me take it, you'd be sorry when I started crying or trying to escape... You would let me stop, and I need someone tough enough not to let me stop," she faced Regulus and he nodded.  
"And what do you want us to do then? Let's watch you scream?" his ironic tone was clear as daylight.  
"You won't have time for this, the cave has many hells." Hermione continued "Created from necromancy by the Lord of Darkness."  
"This guy can get worse?" asked Sirius, feeling angry, Hermione could feel that this irritation was mainly because she chose her brother over him.  
"As soon as we touched the potion the inferi started to leave the lake to attack the invaders, that's how he protected this horcrux. Remus and Sirius faced her "So you will have to protect us while Regulus forces us to take the potion and take the medallion. The inferi's are very powerful and we won't have much time, we'll have to be quick and Kreacher has to listen to you" she explained to Regulus "If he doesn't disappoint us, our probability of death will be much higher".  
A silence weighed in the room and Hermione took a deep breath.  
"Before we leave the cave, Regulus will burn it with fiendfyre. And so everything there will die, including that" she removed the diary from her little bag. "This is the moment for any of you to give up, and everything is fine. I just need you to lend me the Kreacher anyway," she told Regulus.  
"You can only be going crazy if you think I'd let you go to that cave alone, little bird," Sirius said to her gaze, she smiled at him and nodded in gratitude. Remus and Regulus also disagreed and said they would go with her.  
And then Regulus called Kreacher.  
"Master Regulus is alive!" Hermione felt like laughing when he saw the domestic elf smile for the first time since he met him. "Everyone in the Black family believed he was dead, sir."  
"I am alive Kreacher and no one can know that, do you understand me? Not my mother, my father or any relative or no relative of mine, right?"  
"Of course, of course, Master Regulus." The elf bowed and only then seemed to notice Hermione there.  
"Scum of the witch world, nasty mudblood!" he pointed his long, odd-shaped finger at Hermione, letting loose her flood of insults she had heard in her time several and several times when she attended Grimmauld Place.  
"If you say anything more about her, I swear I'll bewitch you!" shouted Sirius bored taking a step towards the elf, his gaze was threatening and Hermione wondered if he would really be able to do it.  
"Blood traitor, the shame of the pure Blackhouse, ungrateful son..." repeated Kreacher and Sirius took another step forward walking in anger toward the elf.  
"Sirius did not..." Hermione held him by the arm, forcing him to stop "It's not his fault, he's just a product of the environment in which he lived all his life".  
"I was one too, Hermione, so what's your point?"  
"You had the freedom to go."  
"I don't need your defense, nasty mudblood," said Kreacher once again and Sirius had to close his eyes and sigh. Hermione held his hand and squeezed, making Black less tense and could reveal himself.  
"There's a werewolf here too." He spat on the floor and Remus closed her fists from the couch where she was, it sounded like she was listening to the Walburga painting one more time.  
"Enough Monster, I forbid you to offend anyone in this room, especially Miss Granger!" said an angry Regulus, but somehow he spoke affectionately with the elf. Hermione admired him for it. He then noticed that he still held Sirius' hand and let go of it, moving away from him.  
"Yes, Master Regulus," said a monster still incarnated Hermione with grief.  
"I need you to take us to the cave of the crystal, where the Lord of Darkness forced you to take him," said Regulus.  
"No, no, no master, Kreacher doesn't want to go back there, Kreacher was almost killed, Kreacher doesn't like it there." Hermione felt his heart squeeze, it was so sad that that elf was forced to that, to be forced to submit to that point...  
"You won't have to do anything, we're the ones who are going in, we just need you to take us."  
"Nobody asked your opinion to change...  
"One more word and I'll stupefy you." Sirius took the wand out of his robes and pointed it at the Elf.  
"Sirius, stop now!" Hermione scolded him, he lowered the wand, but he didn't take it again.  
"Kreacher, take us there, that's an order," said Regulus getting up to go. Kreacher took longer than usual, trembling violently, probably due to the bond of loyalty with Regulus, he didn't want to go, but he should fulfill his orders. Hermione remembered Dobby and how Harry told him he punished himself when he told something he shouldn't say or do.  
And then they were apparate.


	16. The Crystal Cave (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strange group reaches the crystal cave and the mission begins.   
> Sirius and Hermione experience a little of their connection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II! There will be P.O.V. Sirius in this chapter, I hope you enjoy!

The sound of the sea entering through the crack of the cave was frightening and made the climate even heavier, the air was dense, salty and the weather was cold as a glacier. Sirius and Remus immediately turned on the lights of their wands and they walked slowly ahead, guiding the way. The four left the elf terrified at the entrance looking at the rough sea, Kreacher shivered violently, probably because of the memories of what the Lord of Darkness forced him to do.  
Protectorly, Sirius placed himself beside her, holding her fingers strongly between his, forcing her to stay within his reach, and showing himself willing to murder anyone who approached her. And as she always felt when she was beside him, Hermione felt her heartwarming up, and her affection for Sirius was never so great, a loyal and protective man like hell, doing justice to the animagus she was.  
"There's nothing here," said Remus stretching his hand to the huge stone that covered the end of what would be the cave in the eyes of the muggles.   
"The first step to enter the cave is blood." Hermione crouched down and took a stone, finally letting go of Sirius, the chestnut cut off the palm of her hand without panting in pain. The blood started to flow through the cut and slide down her palm, accumulating in a small puddle, so she put her flattened hand on the wall marking it with her blood.  
Hermione laughed. It was crucial to enter the cave that the blood offered was that of a true witch and considering that Hermione had just opened the cave, Tom Riddle totally lost his argument in his trap. Prejudiced shit.  
The walls started to shake and Sirius pulled her back to him, making Hermione turn her eyes in spite of feeling strangely safe and happy with the act. The passage opened and the four caught themselves watching the scenery in front of them, the light from the wands of Remus and Sirius no longer be necessary because the cave shone with the waters of hell, in the middle of that dark lake was an island. The island where the medallion was deposited.  
"The medallion is there." she said, healing her hand and entering the cave after turning in Sirius' arms to free herself, she observed that on the shore of the lake there was an old and worn-out wooden boat, composed also by a hooded creature.   
"What the fuck is this?" asked Remus surprised.   
"A middleman," answered Regulus walking with them.  
Hermione took a galleon out of his jeans pocket and handed the hooded creature the cadaverous hand being extended to her and sending shivers of anxiety to her spine.  
"Is this safe?" asked suspicious Sirius "It's a fucking lake of hell, Hermione.  
"They won't attack us until we get up there."  
"And how are we really going to get out?" asked Sirius analyzing the boat.  
"Regulus will have to be awake to summon Kreacher and get us out of here." she faced Remus and Sirius "So the most important thing is to keep Regulus alive, ok?" both Remus and Sirius faced her as if a new head had been born next to her shoulder.  
"You've completely lost your mind, little bird?" he grabbed her by the forearms and Hermione felt physical pain when he looked into her gray eyes. She saw despair.  
"It's going to be all right, Sirius. I promise," she smiled, but she knew she hadn't reached her eyes.  
"You can't promise me that. It's clever enough to know." Black's voice trembled in a tone and Hermione approached, letting go of her grip and holding her face between her own hands, slowly she approached her lips to his. It was just a touch, just a second, it was just a kiss goodbye in case something went wrong.  
"It's going to be okay." She separated feeling her heart inside her chest beating violently against her ribs, the adrenaline starting to be released as she would face one of the most difficult missions in her heroin schedule. "Well, you and Remus will protect Regulus, whatever the cost. They understood me?" she avoided looking at any of them, avoiding having to read the countenance after her brief moment with Sirius. When no one answered she was forced to look at the two marauders "I asked if you understood me?" her tone of voice meant that there was not a bargain there.  
"Of course, Hermione." Remus answered, as for Sirius, he just shook his head in agreement. And when he turned Hermione tried not to cling to his image by touching his lips.  
They got into the boat, barely fitting all of them in there. Hermione went beside Sirius and behind Regulus and Remus, the older Black was reluctant to let go of her, practically pulling her into his lap, he was apprehensive, Hermione observed, looking at the waters of the lake they were crossing, intercalating his gaze between the inferiors down there and the brunette beside him. Hermione had a vague idea of the thoughts that haunted him at that moment. Because they haunted her too. She could well die in Regulus Black's place.  
A few minutes later they arrived at the edge, the cadaverous hand indicating them to come down, the werewolf and Regulus went first and the other two later. They walked towards the sink in the center of the island of bright stones, Hermione looked at the waters there and at the bottom, the huge medallion, elegant and bright showing up for her to catch him. Of course, it wouldn't be so simple, nothing about Voldemort was, maybe it was the most difficult thing Hermione ever did in her entire life.  
"As soon as I take this potion, I won't be Hermione anymore, I'll be crying begging for mercy, don't stop Regulus from giving me the potion" she looked at the younger Black "And don't stop making me take it. As soon as you finish taking the medallion and set everything on fire with the damned fire, there's just enough time left for us to get out of here... When everything catches fire, the lord of darkness will know that whoever discovered his secret is behind his horcrux, and from now on, the rest of the horcrux's will be even more protected. "A silence struck everyone, Sirius looking between her and inferis them for the thousandth time in that minute "And you two, protect Regulus, only he can complete this mission successfully." She stared at them with severe eyes, and before she could do anything else, she was taken by a hug from Sirius, a furious and tight hug that almost crushed her ribs. She felt him breathing deep, his face buried in the curve of her neck, and there was so much tension in his shoulders that it hurt in itself.  
"Do it right, little bird, I can't lose you." He kissed the little exposed skin part of Hermione's neck, sending enigmatic sensations to the tip of his toe, he walked away so he could face her eyes "I just can't, do you hear me?" he repeated low enough so that only she could hear him and she hugged him once more, strong but fast. Then she walked away for good, giving one last look at the grey irises of the older Black, then she turned to Regulus. Merlin, she had to survive.  
"Well, let's get started then." she said after pigging to break the tension, took Riddle's diary out of the bag, and gave it to Regulus "It's yours now, you know what to do regardless of what happens to me. Regulus looked reluctantly at her as he stretched out his hand over the black cover notebook, he kept it inside his robes and nodded. Without any warning, Remus and Sirius positioned themselves raising wings of defensive magic as if they could really contain those dark creatures. "Ready?"   
"We can do it, Granger," Regulus said obstinate and then took the chalice with the first dose of the potion that would weaken her to the state of near death.   
"This I intend to drink alone if you don't mind," she took the cup from his hands and looked at the falsely clear water, letting out a long sigh she turned him at once. When she reached the end her throat burned and her stomach turned, her blood suddenly seemed colder, despite the sweat drops forming on much of her body, and there was still her head, God, her head was about to explode.  
Regulus quickly removed the cup from Hermione's hands and took more liquid from inside the basin, moving his hand quickly to Hermione's lips. And once again. And once more. Until Hermione fell to his knees on the rocks on the ground, the potion weakening her, but lucidity still present. At that moment Sirius' wand and Remus released the first spells, the hells reaching to the edge of the island and slowly rising through the shiny stones.  
"Don't force me to drink anymore..." Hermione sighed turning his head to the side when Regulus was going to give him one more dose, the Black glimpsed once more the basin and had so much liquid there still, it seemed to fill with each withdrawal, but Hermione had explained to him about the illusion.  
"Come on, Granger."  
"I don't want to... please don't make me" she tried to slap the chalice in Regulus' hands, but he deviated, and remembering clearly the rules she dictated, she held the chestnut's head firmly in one hand and put the chalice on her lips and told her to drink it. Hermione cried and struggled as she could while the liquid was swallowed. "I hate you, I'll die and it will be your fault..." she shouted in between coughs, crying copiously.  
Sirius was battling hellish creatures at that very moment, and she could have sworn she would have gotten along better if she hadn't heard her scream like that, begging her bastard brother to leave her alone, not to force her to suffer like that? He caught himself three times turning his back on hell and taking three steps towards them, ready to punch Regulus's nose and wrap it in his arms, promising her that nobody else would hurt her. But then he remembered her begging him not to do anything, the look in the brown eyes, Hermione saying he should focus and that their only hope was Regulus being successful and getting them out of there. Then he would have to play his shitty role, he would have to be tortured hearing her screams so that he could save her. And fuck, Sirius knew in that instant that he would do absolutely anything to save her.  
"Beware Pads!" shouted Remus throwing a jet of blue light at him, hitting two hells that approached him like a ray "Please, focus on what you're doing!  
"You say it like it's easy! Do you hear her scream?" shouted Sirius throwing a look at Hermione just as Regulus held his head tightly as he once again put the liquid inside his body, his face pale and wet with sweat and tears.  
"Sirius... Sirius help me... You promised me that you would always save me... Get your brother out of here..." she shouted so loudly that it made Sirius' heart stop "You promised you would save me..." she didn't go on because Regulus made her drink from the cup once again.  
"It's ending... I swear it is..." Regulus' voice told her, but Hermione's gaze set on the older Black, who stopped her looking.  
"I hate you, Sirius Black, Ron would have saved me... That's why I'll never be yours! NEVER!" she shouted in tears.  
"Fuck Sirius, I'm just a person," Remus said, throwing a red blast at the animagus back. "You need to concentrate," Moony held him by the shoulders and shook him, taking away his stupor Hermione's words left him, his heart shattered, "That's not our Hermione, and she's going to die if you don't do this right damn thing!  
Sirius shook his head and then started fighting again, casting spells everywhere, but always aware of the most beautiful brunette he ever laid eyes on, begging to be saved, saying he was a lying bastard, that he didn't care about her?   
"It's over, it's over..." he said between spells, being more and more difficult to proceed, listening to being tortured there, a few meters away from him, listening to being the drug of bait in the trap of the dark lord... It was terrible, it was demonic and it was despairing.   
"I did it!" shouted Regulus removing the metallic medallion from inside the sink, at that moment a huge battalion of hells left the lake and advanced on them.  
"We won't be able to contain it!" shouted Remus, but Sirius couldn't hear anything anymore, he was staring at the unconscious figure on the ground looking so... so... lifeless. "Quick Regulus, throw the fiendfyre!"  
Regulus withdrew his wand and Remus raised his wand conjuring up the dark magic, Sirius didn't think he could do anything but what he did, run to Hermione and take her arms.  
"Little bird... Hey, little bird... Wake up, we're getting out of here..." Sirius only remembers the heat he felt around him contrasting with the coldness in the skin of the body that was in his arms, he didn't hear her heart beating, he didn't hear a breath of air in his lungs, he didn't hear his body working... "It can't be... No, no, no, no ..." he repeated madly looking at her face ... her colorless face ... her cold, lifeless face. Merlin... Wouldn't the dark lord take it from him?  
Sirius raised his head when he heard a scream from his brother and only then did he notice that they were in trouble, inferiors were everywhere, and the damned fire was advancing all over the cave, including over him. Then he looked at Hermione and then at his brother.  
"Regardless of everything, protect Regulus" her voice came back to him once again and Sirius stood up casting spells in all directions driving inferiors away from them, doing their function to save their friends and their future.   
"Summon Kreacher now!" shouted Sirius feeling the heat of the fiendfyre and suddenly the elf was there, scared and terrified by the flames and the creatures he saw.  
"Get us out of here! All of us, Grimmauld Place." Kreacher hesitated, probably for the same reason that made everyone look at the same place, not far from them all watched the fire consume the diary and the medallion making an explosion happen, a black blizzard left the objects dark and a long and creepy scream broke through the cave that started shaking and trembling, two parts of Voldemort's soul were just destroyed and Sirius felt powerful. That son of a bitch was one step closer to destruction. When the cave began to crumble over his heads, everyone left the torpor "Kreacher get us out of here now!" shouted my brother once again feeling the burn on his arm get worse.  
And then everything turned to Sirius before he could even reach Hermione's inert body and strangely enough they had returned not to Hermione's apartment, but The Shrieking Shack. All three men and the elf appeared there, fallen to the ground due to emergency apparel. Regulus blasphemed and trembled when he felt the burning pain for his now disfigured arm.  
"Fuck!" he said, feeling the stabbing pain.  
Sirius got up and ran his eyes across the room. She was nowhere to be found.  
"Where is my little bird?" he said in a low voice, getting up and searching the whole room "Where is Hermione?" he asked the others who looked around, Sirius' voice shook when he asked for the third time "Where is my little bird?" his throat formed a ball that made it impossible to swallow, his chest tightened so much that it stopped his breathing and then anger rose when he looked at the elf in the corner of the room, acting as if he was hiding. "You stinking, disgusting creature, where is Hermione? You left her in the cave to die?" cried the angry Black, Remus had to intercept Sirius when he left for the domestic elf "Where is she? If you left her there..." he couldn't even imagine what he would do if they left her in that cave to die "Take me back there Kreacher, I'm a Black and you'll do what I'm telling you, now!   
"I don't obey blood traitors..." murmured the little wrinkled creature against his taste.   
"You will obey me!" Sirius threw himself pushing Remus' body to reach the creature shaking against the wall.  
"Sirius arrives, he would never answer anything he said if he kept acting like this" Regulus intervened with a sore face, his arm still hurting like hell "Kreacher, where is Hermione?" the elf didn't answer and shrank more as if he wanted to hide the information as if he was fighting to reveal it.  
"Did you betray us?" Regulus asked "Did anyone ask you to get it?" the reality that hit Sirius was scary and everything before his eyes turned red "What the hell did you make Kreacher?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no.  
> Oh no.  
> Oh nononononono.

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think?  
> See you soon.


End file.
